Iron Deficiency Anaemia..Symptoms, Causes and Treatments

Symptoms of Iron deficient Anaemia:

Ghostly White Pale skin tone, tiredness, dizziness, faintness, headaches, heavy periods or very light periods, insomnia or wakening during the night and unable to get back to seep, thinning hair or hair loss, low energy and motivation could be because you are anaemic or have a tendency towards it! Have you thought you may be low in Iron? You more than likely are, however the mistake I commonly see people make is that they then take high doses of iron to sort the matter, but notice little difference only constipation and headaches or tummy upsets. Iron alone is not enough; you need to know why you are lacking iron in the first place and to get a good supplement that the body can actually absorb.

Causes of Anaemia:

There are different types of anaemia and different reasons for it occurrence. You may have pernicious anaemia whereby you are missing a vital factor needed for the absorption of B12. Mal-absorption of B12 may be due to other factors also such as chrons’ disease, gastritis, coeliac disease or other toxins in the system.

Different vitamins and minerals work together to boost each other’s effectiveness and functions or simply one cannot be absorbed without the other, these are known as co-factors, this is especially important with Iron absorption whereby it needs folate ( the active form of folic acid), Vitamin C & Vitamin B12 so it can be easily absorbed and utilised by the body. Therefore your iron intake maybe good but without the co-factors it is no good to you.

Other factors which can inhibit absorption are high intake of black tea and coffee (I don’t mean without milk) or excessive consumption of fibre rich foods. Fibre is essential for healthy bowel function but so too is iron. If you are suffering from constipation/sluggish bowel movements it may be due to lack of iron. It is best to take your iron supplement and fibre rich foods a number of hours apart.

Iron supplements high in sulphate are not recommended as they cause constipation, It is best to take your supplement with fruit or homemade freshly squeezed fruit juice due to the rich vitamin C aiding absorption. Foods rich in iron are livers, leafy green vegetables, cabbage, kale, lettuce, spinach, organic tomatoes, prune juice, dried fruits, almonds, wheat bran…

 

iron deficiency may be due to long-term stress, heavy periods, liver congestion, high zinc or copper levels or toxins in your system or in more serious cases due to internal bleeding or gastrointestinal problems. Always get fully assessed by your gP if you are concerned.

With a healthy balanced body and an intake of a wide variety of rich nutritional foods iron absorption and consumption are usually not a problem….so getting to the root of it is usually very simple and something i work with people on everyday.

So often you can go tot he GP and get blood tests done to be told everything is fine but you are still very tired and still have lots of ongoing unresolved symptoms. So I always advise you get a copy of your blood results and see for yourself what your range is or get a qualified practitioner who knows what they are looking at to explain them to you. for e.g your iron levels may be within range but your B12 could be very low or on the lower side of normal but because they are within range nothing further is done but you are still left feeling very tired. Also many doctors do not even check ferritin levels and ferritin levels are your iron stores. To have really good energy levels and metabolism and proper thyroid function you need your ferritin levels to be above 80. Anything lower than this and the body will be struggling in many areas.

I can help you with this as so many GPs overlook this extremely common problem. if you are tired there is a reason and we need to find out what that reason is. Most of my life i have been low in iron and medically absolutely nothing was done about it for years… It’s crazy. You are just left baffled as to why you are still TIRED!!!!!!!!! see my contact details below.

It’s extremely important if you are taking Iron yourself that you are frequently getting your iron levels checked, very 3 months or so as too much iron cause lots of other issues. High ferritin levels above 250 can cause extremest tiredness, muscle pain, stiffness, and inflammation throughout the body, also its impotent to keep an eye out for haemochromatosis, which is a genetic condition which results in the absorption of too much iron.

Lastly if you are tired, and you have had bloods sone the chances are your B12, Folate, ferritin and iron studies have not been done at all if your haemoglobin was within range. This is a very basic test and DOES NOT GIVE THE FULL PICTURE at all, so beware and ensure everything is being fully checked and that you get the results yourself to analyse. So many people are falling through the hoops and frustrated because they cannot get to the root cause of their tiredness.

Anaemia/Mineral deficiency Treatment:

To book your one to one in person treatment for testing or a virtual health and wellness consultation to go through your diet, Blood results etc please contact me at gertrude@kinesicare.ie or 0863888535 and we can go through the ins and outs of everything and get this issue sorted for you.

Kinesiology Treatments can very quickly determine if you need iron, B12, vitamin C, folate or any other vitamin supplement. The entire body will be assessed and rebalanced e.g food intolerances will be checked, correct bowel movement will be restored if necessary, stress/energy levels will be checked, the liver will be boosted/detoxed if necessary and so on to ensure a healthy body is maintained and to find out if or why you are deficient in the first place.

You can also join my Free facebook “Pick yourself Up” group here

Looking forward to working with you,

Gertrude

www.gertrudelawler.com