Iron levels and my visit to PCP today

Howdy,

Have to give a shout out to my PCP today who is truly a great doctor. Now that I have decent insurance again, he is taking good care of me post op RNY since my bariatric surgeon is in TX and I am in GA. I showed him some of my labs from May pre surgery from both my rheumatologist and gastroenterologist. He saw that my ferritin is 14 and iron saturation was 12. Then he checked under my tongue (?) and said that it looked pale and anemic? That was novel... never had anyone check that before ! LOL. He looked at my incisions and made sure they looked fine. Made sure I got a flu shot ... reviewed every vitamin I am taking and medication and took vials and vials of blood to check my D, B12, iron and ferritin, thyroid. Left no stone un turned.

As a matter of fact, he was the doctor that discovered I had lupus and sjogrens and ran an ANA (anti nuclear antibodies test) after I came to him with a bunch of symptoms ranging from mouth sores, anemia of unknown cause, hair loss etc, dry eyes etc...

The one thing he did say was he thought I should be eating at least 25 carb grams a day equal to 25% of my daily protein intake. I explained to him that I was not, but he encouraged me to try to get a little bit of healthy carb integrated into my diet otherwise he felt it could also cause me fatigue and brain fog. Told him I wanted to get to goal first before making modifications.

So I will get my labs back in a couple of days. Hope to have some answers. He also told me that they have Vit D infusions? I didn't know that...!

I've never heard of vitamin D infusions either. But D is pretty easy to bring up with oral supplements. Just make sure it's dry D3. Many here take up to 50,000 units per day.

You should pursue iron infusions, for sure. It's really hard to bring ferritin up without an infusion.

I wouldn't increase carbs until I reached goal, either.

Hope you get iron infusion and you are not allergic to them. I and glad you have a great doc. So many of them out there don't know what they are talking about or doing.

As for carbs - jus****ch and wait. 25 gr per day very little. It is like 5 gr per meal. That can be easily done even when eating dairy, or taking chewable vitamins.

Because whey protein can cause insulin spike in our bodies, I had to and small amount of carbs (a few blueberries, slice of banana or a tsp of PB) to help my BS. Just plain, water based whey isolate would cause my BS drop app 30-60 min after I had a 20-30 gr proteins when shake.

Some RTD - already had the small amount of carbs.

Fiber supplements- are carbs. Dairy- yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese- have carbs. Cooked veggies- carbs.

I may not do 25% as I am losing - but at least 10%. But that would be me.

Even now, I stay away from grains, and most starches. Dairy - since I am allergic, no yogurt or cheese for me. Or whey.

HI,

Not allergic that I am aware of to iron because I have had them before. And yes, I am getting carbs with yogurt and cooked veggies and even peanut butter powder. !