Transferrin

[Yana74]

Hello all. This is my first post on a CFS/ME forum.

I’ve been unwell for about 15 years. The severe fatigue came on rather suddenly but not post viral. I had the fatigue issues for a few years, then it got worse and I had other symptoms like dizziness, feeling I was on a boat, swaying sensation, inner trembling, complete inability to handle stress or stimuli. After a few years of this, one day my body just kind of collapsed. My legs felt like they were giving way on me, everything turned to mush. I spent the next 8 months totally bedridden.

That was 7 years ago and I seem to have settled in to a state where I am alternating bedridden/housebound. Good days I can shuffle around the house and get light jobs done, feed myself simple meals. Bad days I can barely get to the bathroom and need all meals brought to me, and housework goes out the window.

My bloods, over the years, have not revealed anything very remarkable - only a few things - consistently mildly high bilirubin, high aldosterone/renin - but only in luteal phase of menstrual cycle, and then there’s a low transferrin, which has been low for 15 years.

Does anyone know much about transferrin? I’ve googled it and it basically says it’s low with chronic inflammation, illness, infection, and kidney/liver disease.

Just wondering if it’s a clue or is it really meaningless and best to not focus on it?

 

[EddieB]

I’m new here too, so, hello!
I too suffer with knee buckling fatigue at times that has gone on for years. Even gone to the ER, where they find nothing. The symptoms seem so much like anemia, yet they keep telling me it’s not.

I don’t know what transferrin is exactly, but it’s part of a complete iron panel. Mine is low (17.5). I’m trying to learn about about this, as I have some other odd test results that even the hematologist cant quite explain.

Have you had a complete iron panel done? For example, I have high ferritin iron, which is supposed to be storage, yet my serum iron (amount in the blood) is low to low normal. I also have low platelets, with an elevated MPV. This supposedly means that cell are being made quickly because they are being destroyed, possible by a virus or infection.

See my post under the “symptoms” section. I just came across this, it appears that our bodies can hide our iron from bacteria and viruses to try and starve them out. Is it crippling us in the process?
E