I’ve recently had some blood tests done that show promising results for the most part. I’m beginning to think I’m on the right track concerning my diet and supplements. My hope is that things will continue to improve and that I’m really where I need to be.
On June 18th, I had my annual physical. The next morning, I had my fasting blood work done. Those results looked very promising. I was happy to see that my CBC results were normal. I believe that my anemia has finally resolved, and it seems that the Centrum Women’s multivitamin was what helped me to get to this point.
I had trouble at multiple points in my adult life with mildly-elevated liver enzymes. I believe that getting copper and zinc balanced in my diet has corrected my liver enzymes. They have not been elevated since I made this change in my diet. I was happy to see that they were normal this time as well.
My lipid results were good as well, although my total cholesterol and calculated LDL were beginning to kiss the outside of the upper ends of their ranges. However, it turned out that I didn’t need to be concerned about those numbers. WebMD has a good explanation of the ranges on my lipid test results.
My TSH was the lowest it had ever been. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a TSH less than 1 since I began taking levothyroxine years ago. Although my endocrinologist didn’t seem to think so, I wonder if the SSRI I began taking for chronic subjective dizziness may have helped with the stress reaction to visual motion, thus lowering the amount of stress my body was experiencing and improving my TSH. I wanted to go back down to 50 mcg a day on my levothyroxine, but he thought I was doing just fine with the 450 mcg a week. My T3 and T4 results were normal as well.
On July 3rd, I had blood work done for the hematologist. My iron results were interesting. Everything was normal except for my ferritin. I’ve included my results from July 3rd and from June 18, 2018. All but my ferritin have improved significantly over the last year. My ferritin has improved some but not as much as the other numbers. My ferritin did go up after I started the Centrum Women’s multivitamin. It was 8 last December and 12 in March. Since it was 11 earlier this month, I’m not sure if the improvement has slowed down or if it’s just going to continue to hover around this value. My hematologist wants to continue to monitor my levels every six months. She’s concerned my anemia may return since my ferritin is still low. If my ferritin doesn’t continue to increase, I do have a theory. I have to be very careful to keep iron in balance with vitamin E in my diet, and I have to be careful not to let it become too excessive over other nutrients as well. Perhaps the balance of iron and other nutrients in my diet, which I maintain in order to keep iron from building up to dangerous levels, may be what’s keeping my ferritin down. If that really ends up being the case, then I don’t see that I have any other option but to live with low ferritin. Since my anemia and other results have improved on my current diet and supplement regimen, then I have to hope that my anemia will not return if nothing else changes.
I’m very thankful that my blood work seems mostly normal on my current diet and supplement regimen. I’ve had to come up with what I’m currently doing basically from my own research and trial-and-error. Doctors have been little help. I’m glad that I seem to be on the right track, and I hope things continue to stay well.
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