Vitamin shots?

[Spiky Bugger]

Sorry, 'banana bag' is medical slang for the saline + electrolytes general purpose bag they use for dehydration et all. So what I was trying to ask if this was just like getting a normal IV.

I, as my Mother before me, live on the cusp of anemia. It would not surprise me if I end up doing regular iron infusions. Before the surgery I did double heme iron for a month, but who knows if that did anything. I'm still taking the proferrin, so we shall see in two months if this has been enough. I can't wait to start ribeye therapy as well!

I was tested and have a very mild form of Thalassemia, sometimes known as Mediterranean Anemia. (On the south shore of the Mediterranean, they have Sickle Cell Anemia, north of that, especially on the islands, it's Thalassemia. My grandparents were born in Sicily.)

On that side of the family, I have four cousins who are nurses. Judging by symptoms, they ALL probably have it as well...but not one of them had ever heard of it!

(I know what a banana bag is...just don't recall ever having had that particular cocktail pumped into me. It is delivered the same way...but because reactions can occur, you are watched very carefully the first time. And they often give people benadryl prophylactically...but I refused that. It makes me nuts. I also had to argue to get them to deliver it in an hour or so. They wanted three hours! YIKES, I'm too ADD for that!)

 

[Elizabeth N.]

I'm ten years out from a total hystie, so I don't lose blood any more. I seem to do fine so far with just a small set of infusions, like three, once a year. My results are trending slowly downward, so I keep expecting to need them sooner.

If you count on infusions for all of your iron, how often do you have to go? Is it just like getting a normal IV banana bag?

 

[Larra]

The banana bag is yellow because it contains vitamins, not from the electrolytes, which are clear. It's esp important for ER patients with suspect vitamin deficiencies, esp thiamine and esp alcoholics, to give thiamine to prevent a form of brain damage called Wernicke-Korsakoff disease, which is permanent once you get it but can be prevented by giving thiamine. It can sometimes be improved with administration of thiamine even after onset, but it's far better to prevent it.
There are other roles for the banana bag, such as ICU patients with malnutrition, but I think the ER role is the best known.