I've worked in the medical field for most of my career and still my doctors could not figure out my fatigue...ever since I was in my late 20's until I was 40.
I went to a new doctor, he did all the normal screening tests (cell count, chem panel, thyroid, ...) and everything was normal. We further discussed the fatigue issue, he asked if I had been told to take iron during my pregnancy. Yes, I had. So he tested my iron, iron binding capacity, and ferritin levels. All were gravely low. So I must have rockin' bone marrow because I have never been anemic (technically anemia means your red cells do not carry enough hemaglobin or you do not have enough red cells) and used my own blood on our cell counting machine in the lab...as the normal comparator! And I was always normal!!!
My doctor believes that we generally only test American women for iron during pregnancy and that a bunch of us are walking around with very low iron levels...undetected because we haven't been pregnant for a while...and doctors don't follow up your iron levels once you have delivered anyway.
I believe that my iron is low due to extremely heavy menses and the modern diet that tends towards less red meat. Now that we have resolved the iron problem I feel great!
But a word of caution, do not go out and start taking iron to see if it works for you. Too much iron can be a very bad thing.
Other things that I would suggest for consideration with fatigue are thyroid (be sure they order TSH, T4, And T3 all together), vitamin D if you live north of the Mason-Dixon Line (anywhere that snows in the winter normally), and glucose.
I went to a new doctor, he did all the normal screening tests (cell count, chem panel, thyroid, ...) and everything was normal. We further discussed the fatigue issue, he asked if I had been told to take iron during my pregnancy. Yes, I had. So he tested my iron, iron binding capacity, and ferritin levels. All were gravely low. So I must have rockin' bone marrow because I have never been anemic (technically anemia means your red cells do not carry enough hemaglobin or you do not have enough red cells) and used my own blood on our cell counting machine in the lab...as the normal comparator! And I was always normal!!!
My doctor believes that we generally only test American women for iron during pregnancy and that a bunch of us are walking around with very low iron levels...undetected because we haven't been pregnant for a while...and doctors don't follow up your iron levels once you have delivered anyway.
I believe that my iron is low due to extremely heavy menses and the modern diet that tends towards less red meat. Now that we have resolved the iron problem I feel great!
But a word of caution, do not go out and start taking iron to see if it works for you. Too much iron can be a very bad thing.
Other things that I would suggest for consideration with fatigue are thyroid (be sure they order TSH, T4, And T3 all together), vitamin D if you live north of the Mason-Dixon Line (anywhere that snows in the winter normally), and glucose.
