Need Advice-Labwork

Hello Everyone,

I just got my labwork back.  2 Months prior I had it checked and my Iron and Vitamin D were low.  I have been taking 3 Dry Vitamin D 50,000 iu daily and 2 Bifera. I had them done at different lab's so the wording is not the same on the results page, hopefully I am matching them up correctly.  Here are the before and after:

Iron Serum  17-46      35-75 Range

Iron Saturation 4-12     15-50 Range

Ferritin 4-5      13-150 Range

Vitamin D  7.3-38.2      30.1-100 Range

My doctor flipped out when I told her how much Vitamin D I was taking and told me to back off and take one a week.  She was impressed on how it made my numbers rise though.  She was not as happy with my iron as I was.  I have never been able to budge the numbers until I started taking Bifera.  I should also mention that while this was a 2 month window between the labwork sampling I have been taking the Vitamin D for the past 5 weeks and the iron for the past 6 weeks. 

My question is what should I back my Vitamin D off to?  I do not want to end up where I was before, I experience great pain with the Vitamin D deficiency, I am still in pain from it.  I am afraid that if I quit taking the vitamin d my pain will return in full force.

My doctor wants me to go in for an iron infusion but I was hoping to wait it out and see if I can get my levels up with the Bifera.  What do you all think, is it possible? 

Does your doctor (GP) understand the deficiencies involved with DS surgery?  My doc recommends the same amount of vitamin D, daily.  I think if you're having pain from deficiency, decreasing the amount you take probably isn't a good idea?  Have you talked to your surgeon's office?

Your doc understands oil based D2 not the dry D3 we are taking. I would only take 100,000 IUs of dry D3 until your number is close to 100 on your labs. Once you get close to 100, you might want to back off to 50,000 IUs a day and see if you maintain on that amount. I don't think I know any DSrs that are able to maintain on less than 50,000 IUs a day of dry D3.

I'm not sure what the lab ranges are showing. Are the ones on the left your last 2 lab numbers and the ranges on the right your lab ranges?

 If your doc is offering iron infusions, I'd take her up on that. Your ferritin is extremely low and usually the only way to bring it up to the top of the range, once it's as low as yours, is with infusions. You can support your levels with Bifera once you have your infusions I would think.

--gina

Sorry for the confusion on my numbers, the first number is my first reading, the 2nd number is my 2nd reading and the last numbers are the range.  My Doctor does not understand my surgery at all so I am educating her the best I can.  It was someone from here that told me she was leading me wrong and told me what to do to get my Vitamin D back up and it worked.  I have realized that not all doctors understand our surgery and I have to educate each one I deal with so I get the proper treatment.

KIm

your Vit d and iron panel are pretty awful....the good thing is you have only been taking your increase a short amount of time, and you need more time to bring up your values.  Just to make sure you are taking VD3 and not VD2, as a DSer does not absorbe VD2, the RX.  I would also suggest if you have a RX plan ask your dr to prescribe for you Proferrin forte 3 pills/day.  It seems your dr does not understand the DS, especially taking 1 50K Vit D a week is really for a patient who has a low Vit d with NO malabsorption.  Ask your dr to treat you  as a SHORT GUT patient, this way the dr will treat you as a malabsorption patient......good luck and keep advocating for yourself...