Night Sweats- Anemia/ Low Iron

[rysmom14]

Hi Board! I have posted a good bit about the night sweats/ terrors that my son always seemed to have.  for the last 5 months his diet has been very limited because his liver numbers have risen.  since then, his night terrors have all but gone away, and he is having less night sweats, but they are still there.

I remember someone else posting about a Vit D or C deficiency and that being a common HFI problem because the diet is so limited, and the low Vitamin levels being a cause of night sweats.  I had the Dr. test for the Vit C and D and both were low.  But by checking into those levels, the Dr decided to look close at his iron levels and saw they were low and that his overall Hemoglobin was low.  he just had blood drawn again last week and they checked a complete iron and it showed the level was very very low.  his number was 23 and the normal range is 45 to 188. 

He had also been taking the Nano VM vitamin for 2 months prior to the blood draw and that vitamin contains 7mg of iron which would be the normal daily amount needed.  So I cant imagine what his iron level was before the vitamin.  so he is taking Poly vi sol with iron that contains 10 mg of iron and also has additional D & C vitamins. of course low iron is also expected for the same reason Vitamin D & C tend to be low ( limited diet), but low iron is also a big contributor of night sweats.  I am thinking all this time I have been thinking the sweats were coming from fructose containing foods, it was really a combination.  once his iron gets to a normal level, I will post an update about the night sweats and see if they have lessened or gone away.

If anyone is dealing with similar issues, you may want to talk to your Dr. about your H&H and iron level in addition to the Vitamin C & D levels.   

[antonia]

Thanks for the update. Wow, getting those iron levels up should make him feel a lot better.

Not sure if you discussed with your doctor the effect of calcium on iron absorption but it has an inhibitory effect. Being that the HFI diet includes a lot of dairy this can also be a problem. Palmera's iron levels have been low in the past so she was prescribed a multi vitamin with iron and low levels of calcium. I also try to give her the vitamin at a meal without dairy. This can be tough to do, sometimes I just have to tell her sorry, no milk (or cheese, or yogurt) with this meal. And for extra measure, if we're eating something I know is a good source of iron (red meat), I will give her a vitamin C supplement with it.

On vitamin D, even though her multi vitamin has it, we take extra, especially during the seasons where we don't see the sun much, which is like 10 months out of the year around here. Being that she does eat so much dairy I was surprised to find her D levels were also low but the doctor said the D vitamins you get from dairy don't absorb very well.

[rysmom14]

Thanks Antonia. That is good info about calcium and iron absorption. right now he is getting the Nanvo VM- multivitamin in the morning and since it's a power, we mix that with his yogurt. The Dr. told us that he has to wait at least 4 hours before he gets the iron, so we end up doing that in the evening before bed. He gets the liquid and it tastes nasty so he does drink milk after and then eats crackers. I will have to send a message to his dietician/ doctors and see if we should not be doing it that way.

Thanks!

[antonia]

Definitely a challenge when they're too young to swallow pills. I wonder if you could use one of those supplemental patches? That way you don't have to worry about interactions during digestion or deal with the nasty taste. But I've no idea what the inactive ingredients are, if any, for those patches. Not sure if you have access to a naturopath or functional doctor, but we get a lot more help with supplements and addressing nutritional deficiencies from our naturopathic doctor than we ever have from conventional docs.

[Stefanie (Ziba)]

My son't D and TIBC/Hemoglobin were low at birth. He has been on a metabolic formula (Elecare) and I think that is what helped his values rise.
You may want to look at the metabolic formulas by Abbott. He may need more B12 than you find in a multi. Here is one example of their multi-mineral / vitamin offerrings:
abbottnutrition.com/provimin

[rachael]

Thanks for this post! We have fallen off of the NanoVM wagon because my son hates it now (won't eat it in the yogurt anymore). It's a good reminder that we need to find some other way to get it in him. It's so hard that you can't cook or freeze it. The options of how to get it in are so limited.

[ukbill]

I have noticed recently I have been having more and more night sweats than usual.

Pretty certain I have narrowed it down to potatoes or other fructose bearing foods.

More than one meal in 2 days ontaining potatoes (even very safe varieties cooked safely) seems to start me off.

Keeping to rice and Pasta keeps me much cooler at night.

Never had a problem with low iron but then I eat a lot of red meat and at least once a week I try to eat something like Lambs liver or chicken livers.

An alternative to these foods is a safe liver pate, if you can find one commercially produced recently in the UK they now all have added sugar and even those saying they only contain Dextrose cause me problems.

I also have Marmite (or the Australian version Vegemite) on toast. its basically yeast extract and full of B group vitamins.

Hope this helps?