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Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:11 am
by ViewsAskew
stjohnh wrote:I like fried chicken livers, but have bad memories of beef liver. My Mom (who had RLS) went through a phase when she made me and my brothers and sisters eat small amounts of raw beef liver daily when we were children. Might actually have been a good idea, but we didn't think so. My grandmother bought spleen from the butcher when I was a kid. She fed it to her Siamese cats. I bet they didn't have RLS. https://youtu.be/JN0OQVs0vR0


:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:36 am
by Yankiwi
About every two years my mother would cook (overcook) beef liver for our dinner and proclaim that from then on we would have it once a week or month. Everyone hated it so it would be a long time before she tried it again. But raw beef liver, yuck!
Now the only two foods "off my list" are offal and eggplant.

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2019 10:36 pm
by nrpardee
I had never taken iron before, and I took 2 Proferrin for about 3 months, and it raised my ferritin from 39 to 50. The increase actually occurred over the first two months. I'm now trying ferrous sulfate to see if it does any better.

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2019 10:50 pm
by nrpardee
stjohnh wrote:In my quest to keep my iron levels as high as possible and hopefully decreasing the frequency that I will need repeat IV Iron (Injectafer) infusions, I have ordered dessicated spleen tablets (lots of heme iron, 2mg/500mg capsule) from amazon and transdermal iron patches. Even better might be eat spleen or liver from the butcher shop, but both are gross as food, LOL. Good evidence they will help is NOT available, but there IS good evidence that ferrous sulfate orally is very unlikely to help keep my ferritin high enough to keep my RLS symptoms at bay, both in the literature and by my personal attempts at increasing ferritin with ferrous sulfate.


In one of the reviews on Amazon, the person taking desiccated spleen said that it can mess with your immune system, and their doctor took them off after 90 days. Doing more looking it appears that this is probably not an issue, but it might be worth checking.

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 4:39 pm
by peanut1
Holland,

I can't imagine eating raw liver!!!

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2021 6:49 pm
by nrpardee
nrpardee wrote:
Wed Feb 06, 2019 10:36 pm
I had never taken iron before, and I took 2 Proferrin for about 3 months, and it raised my ferritin from 39 to 50. The increase actually occurred over the first two months. I'm now trying ferrous sulfate to see if it does any better.
Standard ferrous sulfate worked well at raising my ferritin levels. However, as I watch the current webinars on iron, I'm hoping to get my docs to perform the additional tests besides ferritin levels- perhaps intravenous will reduce the meds I'm taking. My RLS is currently stabilized with meds, but I'm often borderline sleepy/tired, needs more sleep than I did, and concerned with cognitive effects.

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2021 4:23 am
by badnights
stjohnh wrote:In my quest to keep my iron levels as high as possible and hopefully decreasing the frequency that I will need repeat IV Iron (Injectafer) infusions, I have ordered dessicated spleen tablets (lots of heme iron, 2mg/500mg capsule) from amazon and transdermal iron patches. Even better might be eat spleen or liver from the butcher shop, but both are gross as food, LOL. Good evidence they will help is NOT available, but there IS good evidence that ferrous sulfate orally is very unlikely to help keep my ferritin high enough to keep my RLS symptoms at bay, both in the literature and by my personal attempts at increasing ferritin with ferrous sulfate.
Holland, can you update us on the effects?

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2021 3:06 pm
by stjohnh
I only took the spleen capsules for a short time, kinda just got tired taking so many pills, LOL. Anyway, I doesn't look like I need them as the IV Iron has become more and more effective. I am currently receiving my 4th set of IV iron infusions, first 1/2 was last Tuesday, second 1/2 this coming Tuesday. But they are clearly lasting longer:

First set Dec 2018
2nd set July 2019 (7 months from last infusion)
3rd set June 2020 (11 months)
4th set Nov 2021 (17 months)

Re: Proferrin/Iron Heme Polypeptide Tablet

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2021 3:54 am
by badnights
I tried to calculate how much heme iron was in each capsule. I bought 2 of spleen and 1 of liver. The spleen has more iron, so I used that for the calculation. They say there's 12.5 g heme Fe per ounce (per 28,350 mg) of their dried spleen, and they say each cap contains 500 mg of spleen. I weighed them, and they're ~472.5 mg. OK, I'll use 500 mg for the sake of argument.

They also say 6 capsules are a serving, but elsewhere say 1 oz is a serving. 1 oz = 28,350 mg = 56.7 capsules. That's not very helpful, so I approached it a different way. I currently take 180 mg daily of elemental Fe (in the form of a sulfate). Say I only need a third of that (60 mg) in heme Fe cuz it's absorbed sooooo much better:
12.5 mg Fe / 28,350 mg spleen = X mg Fe / 500 mg capsule
X = 0.22046 mg Fe / capsule
To get 60 mg Fe I would need to take 60 / 0.22046 = 272 pills daily.

So I emailed them a couple of days ago with the above information, along with a number of questions:
Is a serving 1 oz, or is it 6 capsules?
Does each capsule actually contain ~500 mg spleen?
How much Fe is in each capsule?

I haven't heard back from them yet.