Most people expect low iron to look like anemia on a lab report. It often doesn't. Your ferritin, the number that tracks your iron reserve, can fall into the 15 to 30 ng/mL gray zone and drag down your energy, focus, and hair while the rest of your bloodwork reads normal. Often, ferritin isn't even measured, so the cause of how you feel never shows up on the page.
The women who come to us in Chapel Hill are usually in one of two spots. Some are a few months past giving birth at NC Women's Hospital and never bounced back the way they expected. Others have lost iron slowly over years of heavy periods and only noticed once the fatigue became constant. A humid Carolina summer makes it all feel heavier.
Your OB may spot the low number, but spotting it and treating it are different. Most offices around Chapel Hill and Carrboro simply aren't set up to run an IV on site. Oral iron takes three to six months of tablets and, for many people, the stomach trouble that comes with them. The alternative is a hospital infusion suite, which means a drive, a parking deck, a check-in line, and a waiting room, most of a day gone. Neither fits a full schedule.