Hemochromatosis Support Group
Hemochromatosis is a hereditary disease characterized by improper processing by the body of dietary iron which causes iron to accumulate in a number of body tissues, eventually causing organ dysfunction. It is the main iron overload disorder. Hemochromatosis is notorious for having symptoms that are often initially misattributed to other diseases.
I'm currently sitting in my doctors office waiting for my first therapeutic phlebotomy treatment. I was diagnosed with HH 7 years ago (at a young age of 26) and have been monitoring it since. My ferritin is now at a 400, so although it's not extremely high like a lot of the cases I see on here, we decided to start the phleb treatments as my ferritin increased over 100 in the last few months. So we will be doing 1 treatment a week for the next 4 weeks.
What I'm curious about is if HH is affecting me physically yet. I've been very fatigued lately, so I'm hoping after a few treatments I'll be feeling more energetic. But I'm not sure if I'm fatigued from HH... my liver function is still great. All my other levels are in pretty good shape.
Do you think HH is making me fatigued or is it just too early to have any real symptoms?
As for your specific question of fatigue with a ferritin level of 400. Based on my personal experience, probably not. My ferritin levels were "monitored" for several months and ranged from 600 to 1,000. Finally, after being referred to blood doctor, he immediately started me iron draining. I did 8 donations in 9 weeks. My ferritin level dropped to 13 so he had me stop for nearly a year before restarting again a month ago when my ferritin went back up to 150. This go around he wants me to do 3 donatations in 3 months and then recheck. I image that I will end up doing 3-4 donations a year and just monitor from now on.
I did not feel any different at all whatever my ferritin level was; 13 or 1,ooo.
Maybe with your young age, your results will be different than me since I am 68 now.
Good luck and I hope that you feel better. Just keep your ferritin under control.