You moved here for the schools, the greenways, the easy shot into the Triangle for work, and you've been running hard ever since. Somewhere in the middle of it, the fatigue set in and never left. You're flattened by mid-afternoon, your hair thins, and your focus frays by the end of the workday. When you brought it up, a doctor skimmed your labs, said your iron was "a little low," and pointed you to a supplement. Weeks on, nothing's changed.
Ferritin, your iron reserve, can sit in the 15 to 30 ng/mL gray zone, low enough to drain you, while the rest of your bloodwork reads normal, and it's often not even ordered. Layer on a humid Carolina summer that already saps you, and depleted iron leaves you more wrung out than the number alone suggests. Most of the Cary women we see are a few months postpartum or have spent years losing iron to heavy cycles.
Plenty of Triangle OBs will catch the low number at a visit. Far fewer can run an IV in the office to actually fix it. That leaves two options, both of which cost you time you don't have. Oral iron is a months-long grind your stomach may reject. And an infusion suite means giving up a chunk of the day, the drive, the parking, the check-in, the wait, usually squeezed between work and the kids.
Ferritin, your iron reserve, can sit in the 15 to 30 ng/mL gray zone, low enough to drain you, while the rest of your bloodwork reads normal, and it's often not even ordered. Layer on a humid Carolina summer that already saps you, and depleted iron leaves you more wrung out than the number alone suggests. Most of the Cary women we see are a few months postpartum or have spent years losing iron to heavy cycles.