women’s health

There used to be a point in many afternoons when I’d feel so fatigued that it was sickening. A full-body tiredness that if I did not lie down and close my eyes it’d take all my faculties to keep functioning. This would often happen shortly before I’d have to meet my kids at the bus stop and I’d worry that I wouldn’t have the energy to get out there, or even fall asleep and miss it. When I talked to my doctor about this, she attributed it to my being a busy mom and said I was probably just tired for understandable reasons like pretty much all moms out there. I tried to explain it was beyond a regular tired feeling, but in any case it was dropped. I brought it up with my naturopath who checked my thyroid levels (my thyroid levels are checked yearly because of a family history of low thyroid anyway) and a whole slew of other levels that had the person taking my blood rather shocked at the number of vials she had to fill. The naturopath attributed the fatigue to sub-optimal hormone production across the board, a lack of protein, and my multiple food intolerances. And actually, all those things could have been the reason for the fatigue, except that they weren’t.

When my youngest son went to that same naturopath, she immediately knew he needed an iron supplement because he was not a big meat eater, nor a big greens eater. And here’s the catch with the greens, it is hard for the body to absorb iron from greens, and greens as well as iron supplements should always be accompanied by vitamin C, either a supplement or in food form. Plus my son had food intolerances which meant that his digestive system was impaired, another indication one might need iron supplementation. When I did further research on iron for him, it occurred to me that I had all the symptoms of low iron too, so I started taking the same liquid iron that he did and guess what- that sickening afternoon fatigue went away.

You see, in all those blood tests, iron was ignored even though my naturopath and I talked ad nauseum about my being vegetarian or pescatarian for most of my life and she was the one who got me to eventually add chicken and turkey to my diet, after about five years of insistence, to help build up lifelong deficiencies. (I’m still squeemmish about the poultry, but my naturopath would actually like me to eat liver and beef, so it’s a compromise.) My physician also was aware of my dietary habits but has never to this day ordered an iron test. But when I told both of them that my fatigue was better with iron supplementation, they both had the same reaction of, “oh, that makes total sense.” It’s not just my experience either. I’ve talked to several women of child bearing years who don’t eat any or much meat who have never had their iron tested. It just doesn’t seem to be a common test doctors think to run.

So I’m harping on about this because it is just my way of saying, you might need to ask for your iron to be checked if you have a mostly vegetarian or vegan diet, are a woman in child bearing years or are currently pregnant, have Celiac disease, IBS, or any other digestive system disorder, have heavy periods or internal bleeding, or have unexplained fatigue or other symptoms. It just seems to be one of those things that you have to be your own advocate on because it doesn’t seem to be en vogue for medical practitioners to think about iron straight away. If you need another reason to look into your iron levels, running low contributes to anxiety and cloudy brain.

It seems like iron maybe got a bad rap, or at least regulated to the ‘no need for supplementation’ space because too much iron causes constipation and ‘too much’ is likely more common in America than too little, considering the amount of red meat most Americans traditionally consume. I don’t know how it is in other countries, but most multivitamins/minerals here are iron free with the assumption being you’ll eat plenty of it in your daily diet. Those food habits are changing though, and thoughts on iron haven’t quite caught up with the decrease in red meat consumption and the increase of digestive disorders. It’s important to keep in mind though that even just taking an iron supplement can cause constipation if you aren’t taking the right kind. An interesting thing about combining iron with vitamin C is that while iron can be constipating, vitamin C can have the opposite effect, so not only does the C help the body absorb the iron, it actually helps counter the potential negative digestive effects.

The best way to take iron though, for both absorption and for avoiding constipation, is to take a liquid form.  Flora, Garden of Life, and Gaia all make liquid iron supplements that are much easier for the body to assimilate than pills, and the vitamin C is included in the formulations. I prefer the taste of Gaia’s but iron is just never going to be a great tasting liquid so consider yourself warned. If my picky son was able to drink it when he was around age 6 though, anyone can do it  And it is worth it to feel like you are fully functioning all day long, instead of battling fatigue and other confusing symptoms.

There are several herbs high in iron as well, such as Nettle and Dandelion. Both of those herbs are known as blood builders and purifiers with the added bonus of being excellent for your skin. Both are often taken to combat skin issues such as eczema. The leaves of each can be eaten fresh in salads (be careful of nettle’s little stingers), made into an herbal pesto, or the dry leaves make a delicious tea, either separate or combined. Tinctures and pill forms are also available and considering we are quickly approaching the season where we find nettles and dandelions growing wild, that also means it’s traditionally the best season to take these two herbs. Eating seasonally and locally applies to herbs too after all.

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