Today I’m going to talk to you about a simple blood test that can save your life. I’ve been practicing for over thirty years now. Recently, I had a patient come in that’s just an incredible story of how sick someone can be and how quickly it can be turned around once you find out the underlying root causes of what’s going on in your body.
What is Ferritin?
This blood test is called ferritin, which can be a measure of the iron levels that are stored in your body. So if your body is low in iron, and I have a video on this as well, you can get a whole lot of symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, depression, headaches, weakness, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations. On the other hand, high iron levels can cause very similar symptoms and actually be very toxic to your system.
I had a patient around ten years ago whose husband was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, which is iron overload, and he actually ended up dying from this and he was only in his thirties. So this is a really serious thing. Over a million people in the United States have iron overload, hemochromatosis, and it’s very simple to detect and treat if you do the right ferritin levels tests and catch it early enough.
What Conditions Iron Overload Can Cause
So just to give you some of the examples of the conditions that iron overload can cause… First of all, when your iron levels get too high in your system, it damages your organs and joints and can cause diabetes, arthritis, heart palpitations, an irregular heartbeat is a very common symptom.
I saw a patient about six or seven years ago, a young man in his twenties, he was thin but had high blood pressure, his heart rate was very fast with many palpitations and flutters. He went to cardiologists, wore heart monitors but they could never figure out what was wrong. After thorough evaluations and testing in my office, his ferritin levels and other iron tests were high. His ferritin levels were over 500 ng/ml and you want to get your ferritin levels around 60-90 ng/ml.
Once we reduced his ferritin, his symptoms cleared up. So high ferritin and iron levels can cause heart symptoms, gallbladder disease, depression, infertility. Low testosterone levels can be caused by high iron. Cancer and disease can be caused by iron overload.
The main symptoms again of too much iron is lack of energy, abdominal pain, brain fog, heart flutters, fast heart rate, joint pain, loss of sex drive. Just overall feeling miserable. It can lead to liver damage, cirrhosis, hepatitis, liver cancer, enlarged spleen, hypothyroidism, and hormone imbalances. It can cause neurodegenerative diseases, early dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ringing in the ears, and vertigo. All these can be caused by iron overload and it is so simple to find.
Patient Experience
So this patient that I want to tell you about who recently came in, she’s a 64-year-old female and she had been feeling miserable for over twenty years. She had been to a number of different doctors over the last couple of years, had gallbladder surgery, pancreatitis, pericarditis—inflammation of the heart. She was in the hospital multiple times, literally almost died. Ringing in the ears, vertigo, fatigue, brain fog, just feeling terrible and many other symptoms on top of that, feeling completely miserable.
So when a patient comes in we have a Functional & Free™ program that we’ve put patients on which determines the root cause and then provides long-term permanent solutions. So in step one is our initial evaluation and includes ferritin levels and iron profile. Her levels were over 1,000 ng/ml where 60-90 ng/ml is optimal. This is really serious and she had elevated liver enzymes showing liver damage and elevated uric acid which can damage the joints and lead to disease. Her inflammatory markers in her body were eight times the normal level.
How to Lower High Ferritin Levels
How to lower high ferritin levels for iron overload is to do therapeutic phlebotomy. The challenge with that is for every pint you donate you can drop about 30 points of your ferritin levels and at a certain point, you can become anemic. She was able to donate a pint of blood three times before she became severely anemic and couldn’t donate anymore.
So that three times would have brought it down only ninety points and she was 1094ng/ml, and that would have brought it down to 1004 ng/ml. I wanted to see her ferritin at less than 100 ng/ml.
I put her again through our 7-step Functional & Free™ program and part of that included the FreeDiet™, which is a proprietary diet that is free of those foods most responsible for inflammation, digestive, and other chronic health issues.
I put her on some specific targeted Natural Medicine Formulas and supplements for the purpose of balancing her system, chelating excess metals like iron. She used the infrared sauna here at the Natural Medicine Clinic. She was doing that on a regular basis and an infrared sauna is great for eliminating toxins, heavy metals including iron.
Between all of this, the FreeDiet™, the infrared sauna, proper supplementation to heal her gut, her levels decreased tremendously. The whole program was very detoxifying in it’s cleansing.
In Just Four Weeks
In four weeks we checked her blood again, and her ferritin levels decreased from 1094 to 92ng/ml, a reduction of over one thousand points in four weeks! This was amazing and her elevated liver enzymes decreased over 60% to almost normal. Her inflammatory marker dropped by almost 60% percent to close to normal levels. Uric acid decreased to normal, and so all these levels improved dramatically in four weeks. Her ferritin levels are fine now and it just goes to show you that the body has such an incredible ability to heal itself.
If you find out the underlying root causes and are provided the right course of action—proper diet, supplements, lifestyle changes—you can get better. The human body is so amazing that you can heal almost any chronic health condition or disease and you can get better. So remember next time you get lab testing, ask your doctor to order ferritin levels and iron profile to make sure that you are okay.
If you need help in that area and want us to do it, feel free to contact us. If you like the video and know someone that might benefit from this feel free to share it and subscribe to our channel. Thank you so much for joining me today and we look forward to seeing you next time, take care.
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30 Comments
Melinda Mero
My husbands hemochromatosis came out negative and iron levels are normal but his ferritin is about 125 higher than normal range. He could see his results and the doctor never contacted him about the test results o i did what i new did my own research and had changed his diet and he stopped taking vitamins with iron. This was very informative.
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Glad this has helped you!
Karla Bogucki
Help me! My iron levels are all normal but my ferritin is 1500. My CRP is high. My mom just died of liver failure. Everything you talk about is how I feel. I have been chasing this disorder for 8years. My Hb is always low8-9. Anytime I get sick it drops below 7 and I have to receive transfusion. I am only 46 and feel 80.
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Hi Karla, I would love to help you with this. Give us a call 561-627-5800 on Tuesday after 9 AM or email my team at info@nmcwellness.com.
Hilary Leaver
Dr Tom,
I have been diagnosed with genetic hemochromatosis. I live in rural Oregon and with COVID restrictions I’m finding it a challenge to be treated. My ferritin levels were 1200+ when I started, last blood test was 900+. I gave all negative symptoms. I believe in natural medicine. Can you help me?
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Hi Hilary, I would be happy to help you with this. You can call us at 561-627-5800 and my team can answer any questions you have.
Jenna Ballard
What about high ferretin, high b12, low folate, and normal saturation ect what does that mean is it still iron overloading ?
Dr. Tom Rofrano
in general, high ferritin with a normal iron, saturation, and TIBC indicate that the high ferritin is coming from a cause other than iron overload. Here is another video on the topic https://nmcwellness.com/high-ferritin/
Bob
hi – i have ferritin in the 300 range…would like to bring it down to optimal…not sure why it is elevated, but i have hunch..i supplement zinc – 27 mg /day and basically have not supplemented with CU …since these metals have to be in a ratio to each other, i started to add CU ..aprox 2mg/day in the evening….since i started the CU , i have been experiencing several symptoms – brain fog, some occasional anxiety feelings, swimmy headedness etc…are these iron detox symptoms. Will they pass?…i have learned that CU works to metabolize iron in the body…
TX Bob
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Hi Bob, in general, I don’t recommend taking copper supplements unless someone tests low in it.
Michelle
Hi Dr. Rofrano,
Due to some new muscle fasciculations, I had some DNA testing done and found out that I have the genetic marker for hemochromatosis. My iron levels are elevated. We haven’t checked the ferritin levels directly yet, but what can I do to get the ferritin levels down to stop my twitching? My father had ALS. Frightened, but hopeful!
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Hi Michelle, Here is a recent video with tips on how to lower ferritin.
https://youtu.be/b3UkKZVRHxU
Adriana Esch
Hello Dr. Rofrano
In January 2018 I was diagnosed with Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia. To keep my hemoglobin above 7, I had to have blood transfusions. After trying steroids and Rituxan to fix things and neither working, I had my spleen removed in June 2018. Due to having over 50 blood transfusions during that time, my ferritin level was 2096 in June of that year. Since then its been slightly over 1000, last one was 1115 on July 26, 2022. Why are neither my regular physician nor my hemotologist concerned and what are your thoughts?
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Hi Adriana, not able to comment specifically on your care but here are two more recent videos on the topic that may help https://youtu.be/b3UkKZVRHxU and https://youtu.be/Ffn7PUiDMnI Additional lab testing is typically needed to get a better understanding of the causes and possible solutions.
Garry
Dr Rofano,
Very high ferretin levels are seen in covid long haulers which perhaps is the result of ongoing inflammation and immune response. Have you worked with any long haulers and made any general observations regarding these long haulers that have high ferretin? Thanks!
Dr. Tom Rofrano
I have seen patients after Covid have high ferritin levels, which were previously normal. I have also seen them return to normal after identifying other root causes and supporting a healthy immune and inflammatory response.
Ambaxter
Good Evening,
I offer infrared saunas, and I have client that is concerned that infrared sauna could increase her iron High ferritin/RBC. I read that sweating is good to lower iron in the body. Should she be concerned that infrared will increase her iron?
Dr. Tom Rofrano
I have seen infrared saunas to be helpful in patients with high iron/ferritin.
Lanja kawani
Hello Dr Rofrano my ferritin level is 270 my hemoglobin is normal should I be concerned about this level? I do have symptoms like joint pain already diagnosed with gallbladder stones that cause pain sometimes.
Please reply to me with any advise.
Thank you
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Hi Lanja, Optimal ferritin levels are typically 60-90. Here is a more recent video on that: https://youtu.be/b3UkKZVRHxU
Vicki Petrillo
I am from NYS, my levels were over 12,000 when diagnosed with hereditary hematocrosis, phlebotomy every week down to about 1200,. Crazy condition
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Glad you are making good progress. Here is another video that may be helpful. https://youtu.be/b3UkKZVRHxU
Kika
Hi doc how about Thalesimia patience as my doc said for Thalesimia patient is normal around 1000 + ferritin level. But it does disturb my fertility as we been trying to conceive. I taking deferral but I feel my ferritin level is same 1000 to 2k
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Hi Kika, Here is another video that may help you. https://youtu.be/b3UkKZVRHxU
Lianda
Will your treatment work if high ferritin levels are due to genetic causes? I have leukemia and had many transfusions for a while that I assume contributed to my high ferritin levels.
Are you using chelation?
Dr. Tom Rofrano
Each case responds differently, depending on the cause of high ferritin. I don’t use IV chelation. Here is a more recent video that you might find useful. https://nmcwellness.com/how-to-lower-high-ferritin/
Sandy
I just came across your website and wanted to check to see if you have an opinion of my situation. In August my doctor requested an electrolytes blood test to check potassium, magnesium and apparently ferritin because I was experiencing leg and feet cramps. Everything came back ok except the Ferritin levels which was 520. I was retested a couple days later and it came down to 458. I have since been tested 3 more times and each time it has decreased. My most recent one was 312. My doctor had told me to abstain from alcohol because it can increase ferritin levels so I abstained for 2 weeks each time before being tested. All of my liver tests are normal, I had a normal abdominal Cat Scan of liver, pancreas, kidneys, spleen and gallbladder. I also was tested for hemochromatosis and that came back negative. I’m baffled as to what is causing my ferritin to be elevated. I have reduced my intake of vitamin C, added Turmeric and Zinc to my daily supplements to see if that helps. Any other suggests would be great! Thanks.
Dr. Tom Rofrano
I do comprehensive labs on our patients to see what the root causes are so I can then provide specific solutions. Here is a recent video that may help. https://nmcwellness.com/how-to-lower-high-ferritin/
Jeannie
How do you lower high ferritin levels (over 300) while trying to raise other iron numbers? Do I need to get more active? I’m ckd, stage 5 (6% gfr) non dialysis. Basically feel fine; the only fatigue I might have is the next day after a sleepless or restless night. 66 yes old, female
Dr. Tom Rofrano
What I do first is find out what causes the high ferritin and work on solutions for that, as well as the low and other factors. Here are some more recent videos that may help. The https://nmcwellness.com/high-ferritin/
https://nmcwellness.com/how-to-lower-high-ferritin/
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