[Marlene]

The way I understand it the ferritin is a protein which binds to iron so that it remains stable/safe. But once that system is overloaded, iron then gets stored in organ tissue. The free iron and stored iron is problematic.

Bacteria thrives in an iron rich environment. When John was on desferral he would end up some pretty huge bruises that would cover his entire belly. When this happened, we would stop the desferral until it cleared up to reduce the risk of infection. I think the chelators make the iron more available so it can bind to it and excrete it. Therefore, we did not want extra free iron floating about. We basically stop chelators when he got a cold/flu or any accident/trauma and then resumed when things cleared up. We may have been overly cautious though.