Iron supplements for anemia---

[femmocrat]

How long until they "kick in"?

I just started on ferrous sulfate and I'm confused about the various food and drug interactions. It's tough working out a schedule for taking them on time, due to work and other meds I'm on.

I will check with my doctor, but was wondering if anyone else takes them. How soon did you see an improvement in your anemia symptoms? Thanks for replying.

[Warpy]

1. Here's a good fact sheet

http://www.medicinenet.com/iron_supplements-oral/article.htm

If you're taking them once a day, it's easy, just set your alarm half an hour early, keep the pill and a glass of water next to the bed so you don't even have to get up to take it, then loaf for half an hour before you get up to make breakfast and take your other drugs. If you're seriously anemic and taking it twice or three times a day, just reset an alarm for an hour before lunch and supper.

You can take it with food, though, as long as you don't take it with dairy.

As for feeling the effects, it only took a week or so on high dose iron for me to stop feeling like I was going to pass out all the time. You should be feeling considerably better within two weeks.

[femmocrat]

2. Thanks so much!

That is encouraging that you began to feel better so quickly. I'm looking forward to having Thanksgiving break to get on to schedule that is easier to manage. It's tough to adjust to my work schedule (I take them 3x a day), especially in the morning with no tea or coffee!

[Warpy]

3. Tea or coffee will decrease the absorption a bit

but you'll still get most of it. The same goes for just swallowing it with breakfast. The one thing that does slow the absorption down significantly is calcium, so dairy is verboten for the time being until your anemia is corrected.

The pill and glass of water combined with a snooze alarm works best if you really must have milk on your cereal or in your morning coffee. Dairy is easy to avoid for the other two meals of the day.

I need both iron and calcium, so I take the iron in the morning and the calcium at night and never the twain have met.

[tavalon]

4. Mine never got any better until I was diagnosed with celiac

About a year after I was gluten free, my anemia was gone. No change in supplementation, just in the ability of my gut to absorb the iron.