No worries! I completely understand where you’re coming from. I was half-convinced I had cancer or something. It was when the doc tried to put me on anti-anxiety meds to help the insomnia that I snapped and really pushed for blood work.
When I got my blood work results and spent the day Googling every value that was too low, too high, or borderline it was like a lightbulb went off. I was too low or borderline for almost everything that has a symptom of fatigue, sleep disruption, insomnia. Seeing the results and realizing there was a physical cause behind how I was feeling was an emotional moment for me, so I understand you having all the feels
I’m so glad that I could offer some information and help (just know that I’m not a doctor or in any kind of related field, so grain of salt). I also did chat with my buddy who is a med student while I was figuring this out.
My sleep started to improve the night that I started taking supplements. This is completely placebo effect since there is no way you would feel the effects of Vit D and iron that quickly, but simply having a plan that I was actioning helped me with the anxiety that I developed around not sleeping, which immediately started to help my sleep.
I found my (former-as-soon-as-I-find-a-new-doctor) doctor completely unhelpful and she gave me no information or advice other than greens and red meat. I wrote out a bit of a rant, but I’m just going say it was infuriating.
@GravelNut’s suggestion is great as well, can’t believe I forgot to include it! I’ve used a cast iron skillet to cook most of my meals for about 2 years. You could also try Lucky Iron Fish (they have research linked at the bottom of that page). It’s an iron fish that you chuck in soups/water while you’re cooking. It supposedly adds 4-7mg of iron (as claimed on their site).
Floradix - I’m kinda on the fence about this to be honest. It really only gave me 10mg elemental iron per serving vs. the 300mg I am getting from 2 supplements. I’m sure it’s helpful to help maintain levels once you get to a solid place, but I’m thinking it’s a drop in the bucket if you’re severely deficient.
Haha, you are going to love training once you start to get things under control
Also, check out this video of Matthew Walker doing a Talks at Google. He’s a neuroscientist and studies sleep. His talk (and book - which I haven’t gotten my hands on yet) are about why sleep is so critical.