That’s really not that low a ferritin either. Sub 50 id be supplementing.
Interesting to see this topic. I was struggling cycling and asked for blood work. My ferritin was at 6. I have gone through tests to sort out the cause and was given an iron infusion. Two weeks after the iron infusion I am feeling back to normal. Haven’t been riding yet though.
My understanding is under 30 is iron deficient.
Under 50 really for men at least. 30 won’t cause you major issues but the ref ranges have always been contentious.
It’s interesting how the ranges on everybody’s tests are different. The last time I had a test, the range (male) was 30-400ng/mL.
I’m guessing that an athlete’s low end of the range is probably higher to be optimal. Dr. Gemini Google suggests 50-70 as a minimum.
Interesting article with lots of links to relevant studies.
Checking in here to say that I’ve done about 5-6 weeks now of iron supplementation: 130mg elemental iron taken every other day, generally on an empty stomach (2 hours of no food or coffee on either side of intake) with vitamin C. Halfway through week 2 I noticed my anxiety and some of weakness starting to diminish ever so slightly, and that trend has continued. Started feeling a bit more like myself again on the bike and hitting power records for the year after ~4 weeks. Is it the iron? Is it just that my circumstantial anxiety has abated for reasons unrelated to biology? Or did my anxiety go down because I got my ferritin up? Who knows? I think you could argue either way from what I’ve read, just sharing the results so far.
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