I’m sure my blood (O+) is appreciated, but it’s not all that rare or precious…
When you have noticeable symptoms, is hemoglobin low, or just ferritin? My understanding is that low iron stores isn’t an acute problem, but it can turn into one if ignored.
I will (eventually) get myself together and share my labs over time, as this is that important – not to benefit me now, as I’ve figured it out, but for others who are not reading scientific articles about optimal iron and ferritin levels and are watching life pass them by. My hemoglobin was not low but my RBCs and WBCs were at or just below the low end of normal, and the trend was continuing bot improving. I could not perform work in the evening, it increased to where I needed daily naps because I could not stay awake. The deceptive part was that I was able to do some amount of work, and there were other factors going on, including physical and mental stress that seemed to account as suitable explanations. But my overall driver was that my RBCs and WBCs had never been so precarious. I needed an iron infusion (by exhaustion and cognition) but didn’t meet the criteria (ferritin was 35) so began supplementing. In maybe a month(?) I no longer needed naps and my cognitive speed accelerated. I am very far from 100 now, which is where I’d like to be ferritin wise, but taking iron is not easy for me symptom wise.
I’m O+ as well; I’d love to donate but am pretty sure donation alone would cause disability (again, as I consider daily naps, not being able to work in afternoons/evenings, and painfully difficult cognitive function to be disability).
I strive for optimal health because my optimal health appears to be much lower than that attainable by others, but I am certainly curious the extent to which others with robust optimal health are affected by changing iron and ferritin. As iron is not a switch, not fuel for the car, I am certain it must affect everyone. Maybe you would not notice it until you are an astronaut in space, but maybe it would be a strange advantage then (though there appear to be no advantages with both RBC destruction and iron accumulation).