Iron Depletion in Blood related to COVID?

This is fascinating. I am a 43 YO female with no history of low iron. I donate blood every 3 months, and I get a physical with bloodwork done every year and my iron has always been on the high end (HGB ~14-15). I went to donate blood and was rejected. My HGB was 11. Went for blood workup, saw a hematologist, my ferratin was 2 and HGB dropped to 9. I even have iron induced PICA. Went for endoscopy/colonoscopy, totally normal. Tested for celiac, nope. I am starting 5 weeks of iron infusions on Monday.

I had my 2 Covid Pfizer vaccines in 2020 and early 2021. First Moderna booster in 11/2021. I had no issues with anemia. I had my second Moderna booster on 5/23/22 and was rejected for donating blood the first week of July.

Has anyone seen this pop up after 4 shots? And has anyone managed to convince their hematologist that this is real? I've read a bunch of medical studies (or I've tried to) and it seems like a simple course of prednisone could reverse this in some cases. I would love to hear from anyone who managed to get a doctor to buy into this, and figure out what that doctor did to confirm this diagnosis. Ideally I can figure out a way to safely continue getting this booster as time goes on.

That is the way I went.

Yes. My husband has never had any history of anemia or low iron. He received the Pfizer vaccine in March. He began feeling more tired over the next two months. He saw his physician and she suspected some type of internal bleeding based on the blood test, He had an upper and lower endoscopy. No internal bleeding was found. They are going to try the camera endoscopy next week. We don't think this is going to reveal anything. His iron, ferritin and red blood cell count is extremely low. The only change in has been receiving the vaccine. He had normal blood work in January. Thanks

So interesting to stumble across this thread. I had my pfizer shot May 30, and by June 5th was having blood work done to try and figure out why I felt so awful. Initial blood work came back with a ferratin of 3, and a hgb of 10. I've never been anemic before in my life, not even when I was vegan. This marked the beginning of three months of crippling nausea and dizziness and fatigue. After many blood tests, every single one of my tests for inflammation came back sky high, complete with calprotectin (SP?) in a stool sample. I'm still trying to recover from this. I still decided to get my second vaccine (moderna), just unfortunate side effects that hit me I guess.

@mellonsonsally, hi. What did you do to treat your inflammation and low iron levels ? What was your recovery time ?

Hi! I ended up needing iron transfusions for the anemia, nothing else worked for me. The inflammation lessened on its own over time, but after the transfusions it was gone, so I know it wad connected. I finally had my first round of normal blood work last onto actually 🙏

Thank you for the response.
My 14 year old daughter took the 2nd dose of the Pfizer covid vaccine on the 4th Feb 2022 and has not recovered to current. Her iron and vitamin D levels were almost non existent, and inflammation throughout her body has and still is so intense. She hasn't been able to attend school since then. In May the Paediatrician diagnosed her condition as PIMS. she is in constant pain which is really sad indeed, and not much we can do for treatment from what we have been told. Her covid spike protein when tested in May was 6735. Pfizer has collected adverse affects data but the South African entity has not provided any info since. If others have experienced this and have successful treatment or remedies, it will be great to hear from you. Cheers