What Are The Effects Of Withdrawing Iron Pills?

Hi, After going through your case, my concern is at the age of 19 what is the cause of so low hemoglobin, 5.5 I want to know about - 1) Your gender as female are more prone for low hemoglobin. 2) If you are female, your menstrual cycles duration of cycle, no of days of bleeding, severity of bleeding, irregularities. 3) Bleeding from any other sites, blood in vomiting or cough or black colored soft stool. (though iron supplement is associated with black stool but usually associated with hard stool and constipation) 4) Diet habits like pure vegetarian. 5) Associated symptoms like chronic cough, weight loss, rash over body, joint pain, any eye complaints. 6) Swellings over face or legs. 7) Family history of low hemoglobin. I will advise you to do following investigation which are helpful in your case depending upon clinical history and Examination - 1) Complete haemogram with Red blood cell indices. 2) Peripheral blood smear. 3) Iron study, serum iron may be Normal in your case as you are on iron supplement but serum ferritin is more informative. 4) Serum Vitamin B12 5) Stool for occult blood 6) Ultrasonography of abdomen and pelvis (for liver, spleen, kidneys, uterus, overies.) 7) Thyroid function test. 8) If necessary Hemoglobin electrophoresis. We need to find underlying cause of low Hb and need to assess for comlications associated with low Hb. As far as your concern regarding whether to stop iron supplement my advise is you should continue it till results of above test available after finding underlying cause for low Hb we can correct it. If you have symptoms of side effects of iron supplement (like abdominal discomfort which is severe enough to disturb your daily routine) you can safely discontinue oral iron supplement. If really you are intolerant to oral iron and there is proven iron deficiency you need to take iron in injectable form.