Iron Supplements and Muscle Soreness/Shoulder Blade Pain

Diet and Nutrition
1

It’s best if I go back 3 months ago when I found my ferritin levels at 24 and iron at 41 with normal hemoglobin and all the symptoms of iron deficiency. All of the symptoms of are gone now that my ferritin levels are normal.

The symptom I want to focus on is the inability to get sore from lifting weights and I went until I couldn’t lift anymore do to extreme physical exhaustion and that’s when I found ferritin below range.

So I started supplementing between 200-300mg of iron chelate or bisglycinate and after 3 months started getting signs it was too much (extreme diarrhea and feeling strange) and backed down to around 100mg, ferritin was measured at 88 at this time.

So here is the problem I need help solving, if tomorrow morning I take more than 100mg of iron (112mg-125mg) and I workout, the next morning I wake with muscle soreness, but if I take 100mg of iron or less, the time it takes for my muscles to get sore increases and is delayed till 2-3 days later.

On Sunday I took 100mg of iron, workout on Monday morning, felt as though Mondays workout was unproductive and I was just spinning my wheels, woke up Tuesdays morning and wasn’t sore at all, then that day at lunch I ate a chicken salad (chicken has iron in it) and I walked out of the restaurant and noticed about an hour later my muscle became very sore of all a sudden.

You probably saying to yourself where is the problem is need of solving, just take more iron and problem solved. Well if I take 100> of iron, (112-125mg) within 30 minutes I get right side shoulder blade pain that lasts for a short period of time, the more iron the greater the intensity of pain.

If I don’t take more than 100mg of iron, I find it difficult to get out of bed the following morning.

Someone has suggested that this pain I feel in my shoulder blades from taking iron I require to function normally is in fact from the GI tract somewhere, I just don’t know how to solve the problem.

Any ideas what might be going on and and how to rid myself of these shoulder blade pain symptoms?

2

Have you tried iron Gluconate? It’s a lot easier on the GI than the other forms. It also absorbs well. Where are your blood levels? Typically you run iron to boost up your iron stores, then back off.

Also, any indication why your iron is low in the first place? It’s fairly uncommon with men.

3

No I have not, but considering the chicken cause the same symptoms as the iron, I don’t expect a different outcome but will try it anyways.

I’ll be checking it soon.

I was originally at 200-300mg for 2 months and had to back down to where I’m at now do to bouts of diarrhea.

I have a history of low iron, started TRT with iron at 61, then 2 years later became anemic with ferritin at 24 and most blood parameters below range, stopped TRT and got ferritin to 128 and iron to 136 in 2 months on just vitamin C which I was also deficient and no iron supplementation, restarted TRT and within 6 months ferritin is again found at 24 and all previous symptoms returning even though hemoglobin is normal but beginning to decline.

4

Is the pain in the actual shoulder blade, or in the area of the shoulder blade but within the rib cage?