Iron Depletion in Blood related to COVID?

Posted by stellm @stellm, Jun 11, 2021

Has there been any reports of iron depletion in the blood after receiving the Pfizer vaccine?

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@jsmhdm

One more question what was the time from vaccine to rejected attempt to donate blood please , this will be very helpful for my time line as well

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hemoglobin levels at the time of whole blood donation
9/20/20 12.8gm/dL
11/21/20 13.2gm/dL
1/16/21 12.8gm/dL
3/20/21 12.7gm/dL
*4/5 and 4/26 Pfizer vaccines
5/22/21 11.6gm/dL
7/17/21 12.2gm/dL

I want to see if the levels will increase on their own, since my last number puts me in the normal range for a woman. But on the other hand, it is really disappointing to be turned away as a donor.

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@cupofcoffee

I also donate blood regularly for years and never had low iron count for any screening. However, the last two donation attempts after receiving the Pfizer vaccine, my iron was too low to donate and I was turned away. The first time I was deferred, I was a bit shocked. And today, when I was deferred again, it made me thing think that the vaccine could have been the issue.

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Same

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@maitri

I also have experienced this - after taking the Johnson & Johnson shot I was fatigued (sleeping 12-15 hours a day) for several weeks. After my doctor/lab tests came back, my hemoglobin / hemocrit / ferritin was extremely low, ferritin is "3" hemoglobin "9". I have zero history of anemia.

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Same I was denied for blood donation for the first time in match now my ferritin is 11! Only checked this due to new family hx of hemachromotosis. I have never been anemic, but have had symptoms since a month or 2 after getting pfizer

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In reply to @amhahn "Same" + (show)
@amhahn

Hello- It's nice to meet you. I don't know how often you donate blood and/or the amount. Although you continually make red blood cells donating blood does lower your iron count and can, after time present a problem.

If You have symptoms other than fatigue or no symptoms at all then I suggest you get some blood work done.

Because I have lung cancer I can't donate blood, but I did for my son-in-law during the Iraq war. I felt so proud.

When did you start donating blood?

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@merpreb

Hello- It's nice to meet you. I don't know how often you donate blood and/or the amount. Although you continually make red blood cells donating blood does lower your iron count and can, after time present a problem.

If You have symptoms other than fatigue or no symptoms at all then I suggest you get some blood work done.

Because I have lung cancer I can't donate blood, but I did for my son-in-law during the Iraq war. I felt so proud.

When did you start donating blood?

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So I’m a nurse, I’m aware of the impacts of blood donation. I donate typically 2-3 times per year and have always had a relatively high hemoglobin. I’m also careful to increase my heme iron intake around those times. I’ve been donating blood for 22 years

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After reading all of your reports and comments here, I decided to look at VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D8) and search for low hemoglobin or low ferritin reports. There were 420,000 adverse events reported out of 330,000,000 Covid vaccine doses administered. Of those 778 reported low hemoglobin or ferritin, 324 of those from the Pfizer vaccine. We cannot tell from this simple search exactly when, in relation to injection, these events were reported. Now is there a cause/effect proven by reporting. To make a comparison, I also looked at reduced ferritin/hemoglobin in VAERS for the Shingrix and Quadravalent flu vaccines (with far fewer doses delivered than Covid) and found 23 for each, out of 30-40 thousand VAERS reports.

I understand that this is undoubtedly underreported, especially since the discovery is coming some time after the vaccine. So, I would say that there appears to be some indication that some people may experience lower hemoglobin at a point after vaccination. In addition, it is known that some people show lower hemoglobin after having the Covid virus (even after a mild case sometimes.)

Perhaps, at some point we will come to a better understanding of all the interactions between Covid infections, the vaccine, and our bodies.

Has anyone experienced either
1) dangerously low hemoglobin of ferritin after vaccination, or
2) numbers that are not recovering?
Sue

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@sueinmn

After reading all of your reports and comments here, I decided to look at VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D8) and search for low hemoglobin or low ferritin reports. There were 420,000 adverse events reported out of 330,000,000 Covid vaccine doses administered. Of those 778 reported low hemoglobin or ferritin, 324 of those from the Pfizer vaccine. We cannot tell from this simple search exactly when, in relation to injection, these events were reported. Now is there a cause/effect proven by reporting. To make a comparison, I also looked at reduced ferritin/hemoglobin in VAERS for the Shingrix and Quadravalent flu vaccines (with far fewer doses delivered than Covid) and found 23 for each, out of 30-40 thousand VAERS reports.

I understand that this is undoubtedly underreported, especially since the discovery is coming some time after the vaccine. So, I would say that there appears to be some indication that some people may experience lower hemoglobin at a point after vaccination. In addition, it is known that some people show lower hemoglobin after having the Covid virus (even after a mild case sometimes.)

Perhaps, at some point we will come to a better understanding of all the interactions between Covid infections, the vaccine, and our bodies.

Has anyone experienced either
1) dangerously low hemoglobin of ferritin after vaccination, or
2) numbers that are not recovering?
Sue

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I would be curious to know my actual hemoglobin when I was having soa with exertion and restless leg symptoms. When my s/s had cleared my hgb was 11.7 and that is when I ended up checking my labs.I never considered that I needed lab work until after i was denied for blood donation.

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My 82-year-old mother received both doses of the Moderna vaccine in April. A couple/few weeks ago she was throwing up, nausea, severe fatigue and shortness of breath because of the fluid around her lungs as she had a lot of fluid retention (swollen midsection, legs and feet). When they tested her they found the iron level in her blood was very low. This has never been a problem in the past and she's always taken a multi with Iron. They looked for any internal bleeding to be a possible cause and found none. They looked at her heart and found nothing new there. They prescribed an Iron supplement and diuretics to shed the excess fluid. It works off and on. If she gets out and about too much her legs and feet start swelling up again and her Iron level is still low. The vaccination was not my first thought, but then I seeing/hearing about vaccine and blood iron levels, and I now see there is some of that here on the Mayo site. And it seems to be happening in people who have had the Pfizer vaccine and the mRNA vaccines. This needs to be researched.

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@sueinmn

After reading all of your reports and comments here, I decided to look at VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D8) and search for low hemoglobin or low ferritin reports. There were 420,000 adverse events reported out of 330,000,000 Covid vaccine doses administered. Of those 778 reported low hemoglobin or ferritin, 324 of those from the Pfizer vaccine. We cannot tell from this simple search exactly when, in relation to injection, these events were reported. Now is there a cause/effect proven by reporting. To make a comparison, I also looked at reduced ferritin/hemoglobin in VAERS for the Shingrix and Quadravalent flu vaccines (with far fewer doses delivered than Covid) and found 23 for each, out of 30-40 thousand VAERS reports.

I understand that this is undoubtedly underreported, especially since the discovery is coming some time after the vaccine. So, I would say that there appears to be some indication that some people may experience lower hemoglobin at a point after vaccination. In addition, it is known that some people show lower hemoglobin after having the Covid virus (even after a mild case sometimes.)

Perhaps, at some point we will come to a better understanding of all the interactions between Covid infections, the vaccine, and our bodies.

Has anyone experienced either
1) dangerously low hemoglobin of ferritin after vaccination, or
2) numbers that are not recovering?
Sue

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my ferritin is a 3, almost undetectable. The hematologist gets concerned under 30, normal can be up to 300. It will take month to see the recovery. I will let you know, first iron infusion is Wednesday. And what worse, is I have to go through a prep and endoscopy and colonoscopy to prove there is no internal bleeding. I have no GI pain, no occult blood. So maybe it is the long-haul effect of covid on the gut. Because it affected abdominal symptoms terrible for me for 9 month. But I have been normal now for 9 month and ferritin continues to drop.

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