Wellness with Vanda
A women's health podcast where we'll be talking about hormones, mindset, motherhood, & everything in between. The host, Vanda, is a functional medicine nurse coach that helps women overcome hormone imbalance so that they can achieve optimal wellness. In her private practice she specializes in HTMA testing and DUTCH testing. Throughout this podcast she shares tips for boosting energy naturally, improve mood, recover from mom burnout, ways to increase fertility, ways to improve sleep quality, tips for pregnancy, tips for navigating postpartum and the fourth trimester, and more!
Wellness with Vanda
36: Friday Questions #3: What are your thoughts on how to support low iron?
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Today's Question: I recently got bloodwork back indicating anemia (low hemoglobin, iron, ferritin, etc). I think I eat a fairly iron-rich diet and the research I'm doing is leading me to think that I don't actually have an iron deficiency issue (maybe copper deficiency? Or iron dysregulation?). Would love to know your thoughts about iron in general and how you would go about resolving this issue if it were you.
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Hey guys, I'm back to do a Friday question. Baby Kate just went down for a nap. I just came in from a walk, so my hair's a little crazy, I'm a little sweaty, my face might be a little bit red, but I know you guys are not here to see me. You are here to get your questions answered and hear the answers to other people's questions, so I'm not gonna worry about it. I had this question queued up to answer.
Speaker 1:Cade was born on a Thursday. I was going to do this as that week's Friday question. He's two weeks old today and I, just the last two weeks, have been doing postpartum stuff taking care of myself, resting, taking care of another kiddo that got sick in the house. So we took a couple of weeks off from Friday questions and, honestly, these first few weeks of Kate's life that may happen from time to time. That is just part of um postpartum and having a newborn and prioritizing taking care of myself. But I was very excited to see this question come in and I wanted to answer it right away. So I knew that I wanted to take time to record this today, um, while he was doing a nap, because, um, this was a really great question, so I'm going to dive right in. The question says I recently got blood work back indicating anemia, low hemoglobin, iron, ferritin, et cetera. I think I eat a fairly iron rich diet and the research I'm doing is leading me to think that I don't actually have an iron deficiency issue, maybe copper deficiency or iron dysregulation.
Speaker 1:Would love to know your thoughts about iron in general and how you would go about resolving this issue if it were you. Okay, this is such a great question because I think that this is something that is definitely a little bit misunderstood. So our body has an iron recycling system within itself. We will produce a sufficient amount of iron basically every 24 hours, as long as we have the necessary cofactors to do so. So a lot of times you might be showing up that you have low iron on your blood work and you can even begin to supplement with iron, but you're really not. Either your symptoms are not improving that you have associated with it, or your labs, when they get rechecked, are not improving and it's because we don't have enough of the other things needed for our body to sufficiently make that iron. So the way that I would go about this number one, it sounds like they did a full iron panel based on what you said. But my first question would be did they get a full iron panel? So that is going to look like getting a serum iron, a TIBC, an iron saturation and a ferritin level, because we want to look at all four of those to really assess your iron status.
Speaker 1:Now some of you may be wondering like well, what about an HTMA test in this type of situation? Iron is one of the things that's checked on an HTMA, but blood work is truly the best way to assess someone's iron status. So, although in general, an HTMA test might be helpful to see where there might be like other deficiencies that could be impacting iron, or impacting, maybe, the body's ability to absorb the iron that you're consuming through your diet, things like that it really is best to directly assess iron through blood work. So my next step if those things have all already been checked and you're still like super puzzled, you can either ask for some additional blood work to point you in the right direction, or you can begin supplementing some of these other cofactors that are needed to really support your body's iron recycling system.
Speaker 1:So first up, I want to talk about the additional blood work. So, if you have already gotten those four labs that I talked about. You can ask your provider to order some additional things Ceruloplasm, a copper level, a magnesium RBC so that's not a serum magnesium, that's a magnesium. Red blood cell count. Transparin, vitamin A you want to make sure that they order a retinol. Vitamin D and zinc. I feel like I'm missing one. Let me check something real quick. I'm looking over, like all of my no, a CBC so and in most cases you're already going to have had the CBC, but if not, you would want a CBC because we want to see your hemoglobin level. Okay, so you can, like I said, go that route and get the additional blood work. So then you're going to see, kind of like, what your copper status is, what your vitamin A status is, what your zinc level is. Those things are super important in order for your body's iron recycling system to work efficiently. So if you're like, no, I don't really want to get additional blood work yet, I would rather go ahead and start, like, supporting my body, maybe doing some additional supplements, see how I feel in a few months and then maybe at my repeat labs three to six months from now, I'll get some additional blood work, because sometimes, especially when things are not documented correctly or coded correctly to match up with the symptoms that you're experiencing.
Speaker 1:Some of these additional labs your insurance is not going to cover and they can add up and be expensive. So it's always something to consider and something to talk to the provider about. They're not going to be able to guarantee you one way or the other. If your insurance is going to cover, it's kind of one of those things that they're not going to know until they bill it. However, they may be able to tell you well, if it comes back and they don't cover it, this would be your approximate cost. Well, if it comes back and they don't cover it, this would be your approximate cost.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the supplements that I would recommend if you are in a situation that your iron level is very low and you do need an iron supplement short term I would never supplement with iron long term, but short term, for a few months if you just need to like, get it built back up, see if it helps you feel any better. The iron supplement that I always recommend and, honestly, I've used myself. I used it throughout the pregnancy and I'm taking one more bottle of it now postpartum to get my like iron stores built back up a little bit because you know you lose blood and delivery and all that business is full wells iron bump product. It's very affordable. It's one pill. A lot of times iron will make you constipated. It doesn't at all. It's formulated in a different way. It's just a really, really great iron supplement and it's honestly the only one that I recommend. So I would check that out if you need that in the short term.
Speaker 1:But then along with that, you again, like I said, are going to want to support these other cofactors that your body needs. Zinc, we can get pretty easily from food. So I would look up food sources of both iron and zinc and make sure that you're incorporating both of those into your diet regularly. But then vitamin A and copper can get a little tricky. Now we get those from food as well. So absolutely also look up food sources of copper and vitamin A and incorporate those when and where you can, as much as you can, because food first is always going to be better. Getting these things from you know nutrition is always going to be better.
Speaker 1:However, I do think it's important to use a supplement with both of these. So for vitamin A, I would recommend doing a cod liver oil. There is a product that comes from. I order it through either my Fullscripts account or Jigsaw Health, but it's like that's not the brand, it's like Alaskan cod liver oil. I can't think of the brand, but anyway, you guys will see it. Um, if you go through like my full scripts account, or if you get on jigsaw health and you order it from there, um, so I would do that to get your vitamin A and then I would either do a beef liver supplement or a beef organ complex to get your copper support. And in the email that I'm sending out that goes along with this, I'm linking for you guys my Fullscript store because you can order those supplements through there at a discounted price better than just like straight ordering from the company through there at a discounted price, better than just like straight ordering from the company. I also linked the iron supplement because you can't get it on the Fullscripts account. And then, of course lastly, this person said that they were already doing this but I would continue to be intentional about eating an iron-rich diet and again looking up copper, vitamin A, zinc and iron sources, dietary sources, and incorporating more of those into the diet.
Speaker 1:And I always tell people when I make diet recommendations like that I'm not trying to force you to eat things that you either don't like or you don't want to try, or you have tried and you don't like them and you don't like them. Find foods that are good amounts of those nutrients that you already like, but you're just not incorporating them as much into your diet as you could. Or it's like something that maybe you like but the other people in your family don't like, so you don't hardly ever cook it. Maybe you don't order it when you go out. Stuff like that is great to find and start adding in for a dinner once a month, a dinner once a week, lunch once a week, something like that is great to find and start adding in for a dinner once a month, a dinner once a week, lunch once a week, something like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you guys have other questions that you would like me to tackle in a Friday question, there is a form linked for you where you can submit your question. You can do that totally anonymously. I will never share, like in this format, who submitted the questions. So even if you put your name on it, I'm the only one that's ever going to see it. I love doing these and I hope to continue doing this for as long as you guys have questions for me and have things submitted. I have kind of like a little stockpile of questions, so I will be working through those in the coming weeks. I hope you guys have a great week and I will hopefully talk to you next Friday.
