Hemoglobin Keeps Falling? Why?

We were told that Hb values could vary like that and it does not necessarily mean much. It can be as simple as you are more hydrated now and thus have greater blood volume and thus the absolute number goes down since they are measuring the Hb per ml of blood. In three weeks you should not have expected too much of an increase. However, you could also still be bleeding but not enough to actually see it.

Iron supplements are a two edged sword. Yes, they help your body make new blood cells but at the same time can irritate your intestine badly. I assume that your doc would have tested your iron stores and if those are still high they may have felt it was better not to give you supplements and wait and see if your hemo would go up on it's own. My son could not tolerate iron supplements in the pill form, but we were told to try Floradix which is a liquid that you can get in a health food store and causes much less of a problem....however it also does not work as well. He ended up getting Venifer infusions (by-passing the intestine) every week for a while and that did help. If you do take iron supplements you should always take them with Vit C (orange juice) since this aids in absorption.

as to the bag of blood.... They will normally not give you a transfusion until your Hb is down to about 6.5 to 7. Although the concern of problems with a transfusion are very small they are still there and they do not feel that a Hb of 8-9, for a fairly short period, is enough concern to warrant a transfusion

We were told by both our pediatric GI as well as our adult GI that iron is really hard for about 50% of UC patients to take. That is why the docs are hesitant to prescribe it. For the normal population this is not such a problem but they do not have ulcerated colons. We were told to give it a try but if symptoms became worse to stop it immediately and let them know.