What is ferritin and why does it matter more than hemoglobin?
Ferritin is the iron warehouse; hemoglobin is the delivery trucks. Stores empty long before deliveries fail, so you can be significantly iron deficient, tired, breathless, shedding hair, restless legs, with perfectly normal hemoglobin. Testing only hemoglobin misses that entire stage.
Below roughly 15 to 30 means depleted stores; inflammation falsely inflates ferritin, so context matters.
Refilling takes months of treatment, and in men and postmenopausal women low iron always deserves a search for the cause, usually quiet gut blood loss, alongside the refill.
Source: NHS, iron deficiency anemia
See a doctor promptly if
- Iron deficiency in any man, or in any woman past the menopause, without an obvious bleeding cause
- Black tarry stools, visible blood in stool, or vomiting blood or material like coffee grounds
- Iron deficiency with unintentional weight loss, a change in bowel habit lasting over three weeks, or a family history of bowel cancer
- Breathlessness at rest, chest pain, fainting, or a resting heart rate persistently above 100
- Periods needing hourly pad or tampon changes, passing clots larger than a coin, or flooding through clothing and bedding
- Pica. Craving and eating ice, clay, chalk or raw rice
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Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
Only after a blood test
If a blood test shows low ferritin, iron tablets rebuild your stores over three to six months. Do not self-dose without the test: in men and women past menopause, low iron needs its cause found first, because it can signal hidden bleeding.
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