Back in 2011 I went in for my first ladyvisit at the ladydoctor on campus. Your first checkup came with not just the pokey-pokey, but also a blood test to check for things like high cholesterol. I'm guessing that the rationale is that a young woman is more likely to come in and get her bits prodded than she is to see a regular doctor for a wellness exam, so it's best to get that kind of thing taken care of while you're going in for your annual poking.
(You can tell I love those exams. I have a very touchy cervix, so I always leave the exam cramping and bleeding, with assurances that this is "normal." Also, as someone who doesn't stick things in my vagina, it's awkward to have a metal thing stuck into your vagina.)
So I did all my tests--there may have also been a pee test in there--and I was informed that there was something weird about my iron. The RPN wanted me to have a ferritin test. I can't quite recall, but I think there was some calling up of the lab to see if they still had enough of my blood left over, so I wouldn't have to get stabbed again. (I think I wound up having to get stabbed again.)
A day or two later I get a kind of frantic-sounding voicemail from the RPN saying that my ferritin "should be 50" but that it's actually 15. Which are words that sound similar, but are very different.
She recommended I talk to the campus nutritionist, who was a nice lady who was very anti-aluminum, and who knew a lot about my various digestive problems and how to work with those to try to get as much nutrition as possible. We talked about the foods I could tolerate and what I could afford, and how much of various things (fat, salt, etc.) I should be eating. I tried to follow her advice as far as my school/work schedule and finances would allow.
Some time later I was checked again, and my ferritin was normal. Great!
Except ...
Today I learned that high ferritin can be a false positive, but low ferritin is always real.
That blows my mind. It's like, you don't know if your ferritin is actually normal unless, I guess, it is consistently normal and you feel good.
So here I thought my ferritin was normal in the past, but it could have just been inflammation? Something like that. I just had my ferritin checked on Monday and today I learned that, once again, I'm at 15. Which would certainly explain some of my sluggishness and sleepiness and fatigue.
But what's causing the low ferritin? Why can't I seem to get that ferritin up? I've been eating more meat lately--mostly chicken--so I would think that my iron should be decent. And here I am, once again, with a freakishly low (but "not anemic") ferritin level.
And I would love to know how the macrocytosis figures into all this.
