"Raising ferritin fast" protocol - no meat??

[thiazole]

OK. Ferrous bisglycinate chelate is non-heme iron, not heme iron. So that eliminates that oddity I couldn't figure out.

Seeing your labs before iron supplements makes me wonder if you have an a-globin gene mutation. It would explain why your MCV and MCH are low while not taking iron and why, when taking iron, you build ferritin taking iron in a pattern where you would be expected to build hemoglobin much faster. (The other explanation i was thinking would be a transient rise in hepcidin from illness; IL-6 in an inflammatory state raises hepcidin. IOW ferritin goes up when you're sick, and HGB stays the same or climbs slower).

Curious. Thanks for the labs in this. It's a mystery i can't readily explain unless you ever get a hemoglobin electropheresis test (to look for (a) thalassemia gene(s)), which only a very inquisitive hematologist would ever order.

Ah, I didn't really think about it. When I saw "chelated", I just assumed it was chelated to hemoglobin (or some other heme). That is very interesting, then, because it was when I started this specific iron source that my numbers started straightening out. I was previously just taking regular ferrous bisglycinate at the same dosage. I was struggling to keep my iron levels up after donations so I went with this new source to try to improve absorption.

 

[thiazole]

OK, I got some labs in my inbox thank you. This is very unusual; I've had guys take heme and see an explosion in their hemoglobin. Like RAPID rise. I am trying to understand this, it's really anomalous.

Iron is serum iron and fluctuates 10 to 12 times per day. That's not useful in any context except for confirming things like hemochromatosis with other test metrics. Any iron panel is a snapshot that changed an hour later. So let's put iron and related transferrin metrics aside. And by "iron anemic," I presume you mean low ferritin (iron deficient).

Your labs before protocol: HGB 17, ferritin 13. MCV is 85 and MCH is 27.
Your labs after protocol: (almost no effect) HGB 17, ferritin 13
July 19, 2025 you donate and start taking heme iron 4 days on 3 days off. Your ferritin would probably be 7 when you started.
Your labs 3.5 months on heme iron: HGB 16.8, ferritin 24. MCV is 88 and MCH is 29. RBCs are 5.75 which is fantastic as it is much lower than expected.

So to review, you did a week of 70mg non-heme iron three times per day for a week and it did not raise ferritin or hemoglobin. You say "I'm probably an outlier in that I am a poor absorber of iron" but that's actually good; as stated in the protocol, it's what makes the protocol work (iron sensing in the duodenum raises hepcidin). We want to block absorption. The ferritin comes from recycled RBC iron already in the body. The oral iron raises hepcidin and ideally ends up in the toilet. And yet my protocol didn't make a dent.

Here are the unusual things:
Heme iron is known to take an absorption path that does not interact with hepcidin. It starts as Fe2+ and enters via HCP1 (Heme Carrier Protein 1). Non-heme is Fe3+ and enters via the Divalent Metal Transporter 1 (DMT1) which can be blocked by hepcidin.
Every heme pill went right in, and you end up raising ferritin and not feeding HGB and RBCs. Extremely puzzling.

My big question is:
What brand and mg dose and how many times per day of heme iron did you take?
No chance you were sick with something like flu or covid during the 3.5 months, is there?

So I've continued to do the same thing and I just got a blood test in January (which is almost 6 months since my last donation). I think I'm at the point where I need to donate again, but my ferritin has continued to steadily climb and finally got in range (I know it will drop after I donate on Sunday). It will be interesting to see what happens going forward. I might have gone a little longer before donating, but I have a Dr's appointment next week and I know he won't like these results as far as RBC and hematocrit.