My last two blood tests flagged ferritin as low, and total iron as high. I don’t have anemia, and related markers like hemoglobin are all fine.
This is likely due to regular blood donations (after having done none for several years). Everything I had read indicated that 4-6 weeks should be plenty to recover, and while this may be true for red blood cell counts and hemoglobin, maybe not for ferritin.
Low ferritin in itself doesn’t appear to be harmful, but rather than risk developing anemia, I’ll reduce the donation frequency from 3 to 6 months, and retest iron-related biomarkers prior to the next donation.
Vertical lines mark blood donations (500ml whole blood). The grayish areas are the “reference” ranges.
