Impact of iron deficient anemia

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 :slight_smile:

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 :slight_smile:

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.

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