Iron Depletion in Blood related to COVID?

@maitri, @stellm & @trieste -
This is an interesting issue - I have a few questions for each of you, as we all look for answers about these new vaccines.

As I said in earlier posts, I have looked at both VAERS (the place to report reactions) and everything I could find through research, and this is a completely unreported issue to date. Additionally, my daughter a Covid health/triage nurse for a large health system has not heard of it either.

- Did you report the reaction where you received the vaccine or to your doc, so it could be recorded in VAERS?
- Were your low blood counts found as the result of your feeling ill after the vaccine, or during routine blood tests during other health care?
- Have the counts been repeated to see if they have improved?
- What did the doc have to say?
- Are you able to see your blood test results over time, to see if this is part of the normal fluctuations we all have?
- @trieste Did you or your husband have any other symptoms?

Sorry for the long list, but it certainly is curious that we have not seen any reports since Day 1, and would love to improve our knowledge of what is going on.
Thank you!
Sue

Good morning @jsmhdm, it's nice to meet you. I think that everyone would like to know how much immunity we all have after being fully vaccinated. But, unfortunately, there really isn't any test available to do that now. We know that no vaccine is guaranteed to be100% . We know that vaccines usually are very, very effective for several months and that may be a booster will be needed. There is a lot of research on this so hopefully, we will have something soon.

The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein test is used to check for antibodies for Covid 19. But it only shows whether there are antibodies in the blood, specifically IgM/IgG spike proteins which could be either from direct exposure to Covid-19 or from the vaccination. Having the antibodies is a good sign but it does nothing to directly tell us the level of our immunity to the virus.

Does this make sense?

Yep , so vaccine shows up antibodies as well. Correct?

The doctor has called me into the surgery today concerned that my son has anemia for the first time having had his annual blood tests. Reading your articles has shown me that the vaccine is of some concern. My son has been healthy until he had the Astra vaccine. Surely this is no coincidence? As others appear to have encountered the same issues.

Hello, and welcome to Mayo Connect. Yes, there are reports here of people suffering anemia after vaccination, but because the US does not offer the Astra Zeneca vaccine, we cannot give you specific information about it.

There is some emerging knowledge about connections between Covid-19 and anemia. Vaccine questions are being studied as we speak.

Here are a few things we do know:
The Covid-19 virus is itself a risk factor for developing anemia. It now is looking like this can even occur in some mild cases.
In the 3 vaccines we have the most information about, Jansen, Pfizer/Biontech and Moderna, there have been a total of 1100 reports after vaccination (350,000,000 doses/443,100 reports of any adverse reaction) Of those 118 had a history of anemia. So fewer than 1000 reports of anemia in millions of injections is quite rare.

Remember that even though we see quite a few people reporting this symptom on Mayo Connect, they represent the population of people with an issue they are trying to figure out, not 100% of the population.

What did your son's doctor have to say yesterday? Is it possible he had Covid in the past, even a mild case?

Sue

Yep , so vaccine shows up antibodies as well. Correct?

The concern with antibody testing, in addition to Merry's comment in not knowing what is a "safe" number in terms of antibodies, is that the type of antibodies produced, and the type of test are different between the infection and the vaccine.

Nobody has all the answers yet, and research is ongoing. For people who are immunocompromised, such as transplant recipients, a few medical facilities are able to offer a special test which determines whether antibodies were produced by the vaccine, and at what level. Right now, it is expected that a 3 shot (booster) will soon be recommended for very specific populations.

Here is the most recent statement about antibody tests: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/antibody-testing-not-currently-recommended-assess-immunity-after-covid-19-vaccination-fda-safety

As with all things Covid, stay tuned for further developments.
Sue

I am having exactly the same problem, although I received the astrazeneca vaccine. I have always had quite high iron, have given blood successfully for the past 10 years (but generally only once a year). I had the first AZ vaccination in January, then the next in April. I began suffering with headaches/ tiredness/ dizziness in February, but this got far worse in May/ June. I had a blood test in late June, had very low hemoglobin level and my ferritin was 2. I have been taking iron supplements since, no improvement in my blood as yet. Due to have another test next week, doing everything I can to increase my iron absorption! No idea if it is related to the vaccine or not, but I am generally very healthy, I am 31 and have no other health problems.