But that means you have to get the Banamine down, which if you are feeling bad enough that you think Banamine will help you, then I wish you well with it. Banamine is nasty tasting stuff.
Hahaha
I was given iron and vitamin c for the weeks preceeding back surgery, as I was giving my own blood for any transfusions needed. Make sure the vitamin c goes with the iron.
Tylenol mixed with alcohol WILL destroy the liver, so it’s not just using too much tylenol that’s dangerous.
Some people don’t absorb iron well. If you’ve been eating a reasonable amount of high iron foods and still low, you might be one of those people. I’m also one of those people, and had to go through six weeks of IV iron in my 20s.
Why do you think that iron doesn’t help anemia?
B-12 supplementation might also help. I like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Encapsulations-B12-5000-Liquid/dp/B0038NZ3KS
Let’s put the bute/ banamine/ tylenol/ what-have-you debate aside, because I’m pretty sure that’s not what the OP was asking about. OP, some of the right ideas might be there with the SmartEnergy, but if nothing else the dosages will certainly be wrong, so for that reason alone I’d stay away from using horse products for yourself.
[QUOTE=Simkie;8153402]
B-12 supplementation might also help. I like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Encapsulations-B12-5000-Liquid/dp/B0038NZ3KS[/QUOTE] B-12 is one of the main ingredients in the SmartEnergy. It also includes other vitamins and trace minerals, most of which are found in a human multi-vitamin (ie. Centrum). So if anything, I would be inclined to add a human multivitamin in addition to taking the iron your doctor prescribed.
Random thoughts from a doctor based upon some of the things above:
Iron supplementation will usually help improve anemia, but only if the underlying cause of the anemia is identified and corrected. When your body is ramping up to make lots of red blood cells, you can run through your iron stores pretty fast and RBC production will screech to a halt. In the U. S. today anemia is not usually due purely to iron deficiency but caused by processes or diseases that cause RBCs to break down or die prematurely. It sounds like your doctor is working on identifying the underlying cause. You may ask him to check your folate levels if he didn’t. It’s actually easier to be folate deficient than iron deficient and without adequate folate you won’t make new RBCs. The most commonly prescribed form of iron supplementation is ferrous sulfate but it’s pretty bad to cause constipation. If that is a problem for you, ask for ferrous gluconate.
Adequate vitamin levels are the subject of much debate and the truth is that nobody is really sure how much is enough. The ranges in most labs are essentially arbitrary numbers somebody pulled out of the air back around the dawn of time. For example, many labs still use 10-20 mmol/L as the “adequate” range for vitamin D but that was selected because that’s how much it takes to prevent rickets. More recent research and my own experience suggests that about 50 mmol/L is actually more appropriate and most people will have at least some symptoms of fatigue, etc. at less than 40. However, it’s not just a matter of taking lots of vitamins and hoping for the best. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble and accumulate in the body and too much can be toxic. Talk to your doctor or nutritionist about how much you may need. Vitamin D is converted from its inactive form to its active form by sunlight on the skin, so your levels will depend on how much skin you expose, how long you expose it, and how intense the sunlight is. In Georgia a few minutes with your shirt off will get you there while in Alaska the sun is so weak that you’d essentially have to be outdoors buck naked all day.
The efficacy of “shotgun” vitamin supplementation is hotly debated and the party line in U. S. medicine is that you should just eat a good diet and vitamin pills are a waste of money. Maybe, but I know a lot of the things we eat are highly processed and lacking in micronutrients. I take a Centrum Silver daily on the principle that I probably don’t eat the best diet and if there are any holes in my nutrition it might help. Maybe all I get out of it is expensive urine, but in the overall scheme of things it’s not that expensive and I think of it like insurance.
People and horses metabolize things differently, so what’s safe for one isn’t necessarily safe for the other. I don’t recommend taking anything not certified for human use. Some horse medications/supplements are safe for humans and some aren’t and you really need to be a professional to know which is which.
So I tried to eat some of my horses red cell last night. NOPE NOPE NOPE. That stuff tastes terrible. I didn’t get one pellet down. I bought a B 12 and am searching for a folate, I figure taking it and seeing if it helps won’t hurt. I also scheduled a visit with a specialist.
I am a vegetarian, so I would not be surprised if i was eating way less than my required amount. We will see if it works, since my mom had the same issue and had to get injections. (Like you Simkie) The iron would just go right through.
[QUOTE=StormyDay;8152856]
Yes, The past month I have had absolutely no energy, and have been sleeping a lot. On top of that I keep getting really bad vertigo (Bad enough I couldn’t ride quite a few days)[/QUOTE]
Could be a tick co-infection too, like Babesia. I have/had the trifecta, Lyme, Babesia and Bartonella. Anemia was one of the symptoms.
LauraKY: thanks for other ideas! Since I am in Florida, and it is perfect growing conditions for bacteria and parasites most of the time, part of me wonders if i have something like this.
The best B-12 supplements are the sublingual ones. If you are a vegetarian, you are fairly likely to be deficient.
It is frustrating how little we know about optimal vitamin levels and how expensive it is to test for the levels we have.
All that said, I see no reason to take horse supplements rather than human. Human supplements are better suited to humans and there’s not going to be a price advantage either.
[QUOTE=StormyDay;8153962]
So I tried to eat some of my horses red cell last night. NOPE NOPE NOPE. That stuff tastes terrible. I didn’t get one pellet down. I bought a B 12 and am searching for a folate, I figure taking it and seeing if it helps won’t hurt. I also scheduled a visit with a specialist.
I am a vegetarian, so I would not be surprised if i was eating way less than my required amount. We will see if it works, since my mom had the same issue and had to get injections. (Like you Simkie) The iron would just go right through.[/QUOTE]
Snort, horse products are NOT flavored for humans, as you just found out. ANd furthermore there are considerable differences in absorbance and metabolism of various minerals and vitamins in Horses vs Humans. So as a qualified nutritionist, I would say don’t buy horse products, but human ones, and do take your iron, as a vegetarian, you are quite likely to be short on iron as well various B vits.
If you you don’t like Iron sulphate (which does cause constipation) or oxide (ditto), then take the gluconate or even the chelate.
B vits are best taken as a liquid sub-lingually.
Have fun.
YOurs
MW
Melyni: Yes, I definitely did find that out! However, it was so salty, I have no idea how any animal would eat that.
Oh, man–you’re a vegetarian and you’re not supplementing B12? That’s really important. I’d honestly ask your doc to test for it, as you may be low enough to require a boost with an IM dose or two.
Pick up the Pure Encapsulations stuff I linked earlier. It’s a great brand, it’s a “good” form of B12 and it’s really a tasty formula.
I’d also recommend the Pure Encapsulations iron, if you’re not going to take something the doc prescribes:
Liquid or one of these:
http://www.pureencapsulations.com/iron-c.html
http://www.pureencapsulations.com/optiferin-c.html
A referral to a nutritionist wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. Just to have a look at your diet and check that you’re getting everything you need.
I’d not even think about jumping to IV iron (it wasn’t IM–it was a couple hours every week for an IV infusion) until you’ve actually tried oral supplementation and that’s proven to not be effective.
Cooking in cast iron cookware was also recommended when I was very low in iron. Sure can’t hurt you and might help.
[QUOTE=dungrulla;8152813]
Bute causes aplastic anemia in humans as well as nasty things like agranulocytosis and liver failure, which is why it was pulled off the market by the FDA for use in humans. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not take your horse’s bute for any reason![/QUOTE]
Oh fer Pete’s sake, I guess my dry humor doesn’t transmit well. I am well aware of the effects of bute, didn’t need the lecture, in fact I DID have it prescribed for me by a human doc in the 70s for an inflamed vertebra and I can assure you that was an unpleasant week.
But yes, we carefree college kids did use the horse version very occasionally and it didn’t kill us. Please breathe regularly and get over the shock, no endorsement of this action has been made. 
Wow, I take both antiacid medication and am vegetarian. According to that article I am almost surely b12 deficient. I wonder why my dr has never said anything, seeing as he knows about my diet!
Many doctors are great if you are sick but are not really nutritionists. It might just not really have pinged on his radar. I wouldn’t let that worry me if he is otherwise great but I definitely would see a nutritionist to see if you can balance your diet.
I would also find one who is really interested in organic and fresh food too, not an old fashioned one; some have plans that focus way too much on processed food even though I am the farthest thing in the world from the kind of person who only shops at Whole Foods. I don’t even buy organic food. But I do eat fresh food and I have seen both kinds of nutritionists, and the first kind is better.
In horses, if they’re anemic it tends to not be that they’re low in iron, but that they’re low in copper and/or zinc so can’t process the iron they have so come out as anemic. I think that’s why the OP was thinking that just taking iron wasn’t going to help the situation. I know next to nothing about human nutrition. However, I did learn, contrary to popular knowledge, baked potatoes have far more iron in them than spinach.
