Is it reasonable to ask for iron infusion?

[Carrie]

Ive been feeling weaker and weaker over the past two months (conveniently timed with a new job, of course!), and found out I'm anemic last week. Iron pills are really hit or miss with me, but more importantly, I'm feeling worse as days pass by.

Is it reasonable to ask my GI for am iron infusion to jump start the recovery process?

I'm currently treating the probable source of bleeding, but the the anemia is more bothersome than my Crohn's symptoms.

 

[DJW]

Hi Carrie,

Can't hurt to ask.
Have you had them before?

BTW: I've never had them so I don't know if or why you couldn't have them.

 

[Carrie]

Yeah, I had two when I lived abroad. Considering how ill I was with my Crohn's at the time, they made a huge difference. Makes me wonder how much of an impact it would have now that I could really reap the benefits straightaway.

You're right though, probable doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[AnnieYa]

I thought the consensus was to avoid iron pills with Crohn's anyway? They can make me very ill. I was told that if I did become anaemic that they would go the infusion route, and my mum has had it done a good 4-6 times before. I assumed it was standard.

��

 

[fuzzy butterfly]

hi i have crohn's and im on iron tablets, so may depend on your docs what they think on the tablet verses infusion one, but ye cant do any harm to ask n see what they think. best wishes..

 

[Om3ga1]

Been on Iron pills before. Never again. But i've never heard of an infusion. This might be something to ask about.

 

[FrozenGirl]

Generally they force you to try iron pills consistabtly for a least 3 months. If you "fail" that then you get all the iron studies, hemoglobin plus rbc count ferritin, b12 ( to eliminate other causes of fatigue) if your ferritin is low with a hemoglobin of 100 or less you can have an infusion. This is in Canada. We have hoops to jump through just because it is publically funded and iron infusions are rather expensive I believe.

 

[Garvey]

Hi I have been having iron infusions for past few years they really help as I cannot tolerate the tablets or liquid, there are two types ferinjet and cosmfhere not sure if that's how you spell them! ferinjet is given over an hour but I had a reaction so have to have cosmofhere which is over 6 hours usually I have this every six months because my HBO drops to between 7-10

I have crohns disease, hope this helps