westo2 - I am 45, my iron level was 240 mcg/dL.
When donated blood, 1) did you do whole blood or double red cell, and 2) how much did your iron level decrease in mcg/dL per session?
I am trying to figure out how many times to donate to get it down to 50-60 mcg/dL.
I'm a lowly geologist and certainly nowhere near accredited to be giving out medical advice - so again, talk to your doctor and take what I write with a healthy dose of skepticism. Need me to perform a coastal erosion and transport assessment for you? I'm your guy.....
That said - to answer your questions - I generally do the double red - gets rid of twice the red blood cells, but also has twice the return interval. I only get my blood checked at my annual physical, so I've never checked to see how much various levels change before/after donation.
According to both my doctor, and my mother (a nurse practitioner who has specialized in these sorts of things) - and I may be getting this slightly wrong - the iron level is an instantaneous measure of iron in your blood, not necessarily a measure of iron stores. It is an indicator that you have excess iron in your body, and is the easiest value to adjust through blood donation. The MCV and ferritin levels (and perhaps hematocrit factors in there somewhere?) give a clearer picture as to what your body is doing with the excess FE. Both the doctor and my mother said that my elevated iron was no big deal, as long as I paid the red cross a visit in short order and my other levels were in the normal range. I will say - your post was the reminder I needed to get into the Red Cross and get my donation done.
That said - this really should be a conversation with your doctor, not some random guy on the internet. Hemochromotosis certainly can be very serious when it goes untreated and undiagnosed and years of excess iron can cause organ failure and death. Properly treated however, it is easier to manage than the common cold.
As to your father saying it doesn't run in that side of the family - hemochromotosis is a recessive gene, which, according the little bit of 10th grade bio I recall, means you need a a copy from both sets of parents to have, but each parent could have one copy of the allele and have no indication. So - not knowing if you have it or if it runs in the family doesn't indicate that it isn't there. I've been told that it goes undiagnosed even in those with both alleles quite often as well.
One final thing that pops into my head anytime I start dealing with medical stuff - a buddy of mine was finishing up med school about the same time I was completing my masters work. Over beers one night, I asked him what the most eye opening thing that he learned or realized in med school was. His response? The amazing fact that any of us are alive. A billion things have to go exactly right for your body to function correctly. One of those screws up, and the whole thing comes down. I try to keep that in mind when life gets serious.
Good luck, and keep talking to the doctor.
