You run on a full calendar, back-to-back at the office in the Tech Center, then the school pickup, then dinner, and lately you're doing all of it on empty. The workout you used to breeze through wrecks you. Your hair is thinning, your focus slips by mid-afternoon, and when you flagged the fatigue, a doctor skimmed your labs, said your iron was "a little low," and suggested a supplement. Weeks on, no change.
A standard panel misses this all the time. Ferritin, your iron reserve, can sit in the 15 to 30 ng/mL gray zone, low enough to drain you, while everything else on the report looks normal, and it's frequently left off the order. Add the altitude here, where thinner air already leans on your blood, and low reserves wear you down faster than the same number would at sea level. Most of the Greenwood Village women we see are a few months postpartum or have quietly lost iron over years of heavy cycles.
Plenty of Denver-area OBs will catch the low number. Far fewer can put you on an IV in the office to actually fix it. Oral iron is a months-long grind your stomach may not tolerate. And an infusion suite means giving up a chunk of your day, the drive on I-25 or C-470, the parking, the check-in, the wait, usually squeezed between work and the kids.
A standard panel misses this all the time. Ferritin, your iron reserve, can sit in the 15 to 30 ng/mL gray zone, low enough to drain you, while everything else on the report looks normal, and it's frequently left off the order. Add the altitude here, where thinner air already leans on your blood, and low reserves wear you down faster than the same number would at sea level. Most of the Greenwood Village women we see are a few months postpartum or have quietly lost iron over years of heavy cycles.