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Hi, Cheryl--A quick note. I had time this past weekend to read back through your old posts. One thing that popped out was a discussion you had w/ Chirley about copper levels and neutropenia/MDS symptoms. Not only was my husband's ferritin quite low (I think it got down to 5 at one point), but his ceruloplasmin (something like that--related to copper) was something like one point below the cut-off line for normal for the lab that did the results. His doctor didn't think that was low enough to cause neutropenia, but we have wondered what to make of the low iron and relatively low copper measurements. She chalks his low iron up to diet (mostly vegetarian plus fish) and blood donation; we're dubious about that, as he never donated that regularly, and unless he is taking massive doses of iron supplements his ferritin continually plummets. Something just doesn't seem right.
I found an old scholarly article from 1985 that said that hypogammaglobulenemia seems to be connected to low iron, and it speculated that malabsorption was the problem (though it offered other possible causal relationships as well). Our thinking is that it just seems to be too much of a coincidence that he would have ended up, as an otherwise very healthy and well nourished middle-aged man, with both iron deficiency and the other symptoms I have described, and that they would be unrelated. His colonoscopy and endoscopy--done before the BMB--gave normal results, though, as did various other kinds of testing from the digestive type docs.
At any rate . . . . if I learn anything more I'll let you know. When I first started reading this site I remember puzzling over Chirley's posts regarding her low copper, but I didn't post anything myself because my husband's level was just barely low and we are sitting, relatively speaking, on easy street.
All best--BK
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