06/21/2023
Sometimes people come to me (with the admittedly niche company name Elusive Iron) thinking they, like roughly half the population, probably just have an iron dysregulation problem that needs to be addressed. But that's where the importance of filling out my intake form comes in; because if I see something that makes me scratch my chin, I will want to order very specific tests for you to make sure nothing important is getting missed.
Case in point: A woman once came to me who thought she had an iron problem. A single thing she mentioned on her intake form made me check her iodine level too, and whereas a healthful amount of 24-hour urine iodine is between about 100 and 300, hers was 3,728.
So iron dysregulation isn't necessarily the worst or most pressing problem, and if you have certain symptoms and have the resources, you should let me do a little digging to make sure things are as they should be.
That and I'm also useful in that I know what method to test because if you test for something the wrong way (say, serum or plasma or hair or random urine or 24-hour urine instead of RBC), it might look like you have a normal amount of the thing when you very well may not. And, just as importantly, I'm familiar with optimal values based on age, s*x, etc., not just meaningless reference ranges.
