May 6, 2011

Iron Woman!

Go little iron, go!
Unfortunately, I'm not referring to an Iron athlete competition. That's so far from my capabilities right now. Maybe some day... For now, I have to stick to an iron infusion. Along recovering from surgery and taking some time off from training, I'm dealing with fatigue, lack of concentration, irritability (more than usual :) and mood swings. How fun! Based on previous blood tests and reading Robb Wolf's book, Paleo Solution, I got another round of tests to see where I was at. Turns out that my ferritin (iron stores) keeps decreasing, my thyroid is low and white count is low.

For some unknown reason my body doesn't like to store the vital little ferritin. It's been a little over a year since my last infusion, but I was hoping my first would be my last. The idea is to pump the body full of iron in hope that it will kick start production and storing. Well, over the last year my body has slowly been decreasing its stores and now I'm tired, annoyed, and frustrated. It's frustrating being tired and irritable. It's frustrating not knowing why this keeps reoccuring. No one seems to be worried about it, so even though it's not something serious like cancer, I still find it disturbing. It still affects how I feel on a day to day basis, how I heal, I hard I can train, my tolerance for situations and people, etc.

My blood counts have been a bit wacky for several years now. A little over two years ago I did a food intolerance test and it turned out I reacted to many, many things. I eliminated several things from my diet including cow milk and gluten and had to rotate so many other foods. It was tough but I started feeling so damn good it was all worth it. My Naturopathic Dr. at the time suggested I introduce meat into my diet as a way to get vital B vitamins and iron. It was a slooooooooow process of getting me to eat more meat. Seriously, I would just stare at the meat in the grocery store slightly disgusted and completely confused. Fast forward a bit and I warmed up to the idea and tried to buy meat that I could eat in good conscience. Fast forward even more and I've read Robb Wolf's book and get Mark's Daily Apple's e-mails and I'm eating meat 3x a day (at least). I'm hoping that since I have a history of gut irritation and only went grain/legume free about four months ago, I just need more time to heal, more time for my body to catch up after all the years of gluten, rice, and soy. I'm sticking with the 100% paleo lifestyle and going to follow up with another doctor about these issues to see if I can help things along a little quicker. These last few years of iron supplements and injections of iron & B complex, eating meat, and infusion doesn't seem to be getting me completely over the hump. I must be missing something. I mean, I enjoy taking a day off work, but for F*sake, do I really have to waste it going to appointments like these? I'd much rather be playing outside!

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