Blood Chemistry

I have a tough case of a 23-year-old obesity outpatient with recurrent pineal cysts, which started after trauma to the sacral area. And even after multiple surgeries and acne, she has very mild gut issues if any. She’s borderline anemic, low normal MCH, MCV, MCHC, hematocrit, and RBC. Her HbA1c was low at 4.3. Should be high with iron-deficiency anemia (although I have seen a lot of variation with HbA1c in anemias and that’s one of the problems with that marker). And low ferritin at 19. Considering Medihoney for the cysts and a Paleo diet with A, D, and K2 supplementation. All other tests normal, B12, hormones. TSH, fasting glucose normal, kidney function good. She can’t afford testing yet, but I was wondering if you could provide direction on this presentation. Looking forward to your thoughts.

Chris Kresser: Yeah, that is a difficult case. Let me see if anything springs to mind just after first glance....

Chris Kresser: So her RBC was 3.98, which is low, her hemoglobin, 11.9, is low, hematocrit, 37.3, is low, her...

Laura Schoenfeld: All right, so I do have an article on my own site about the lab tests that I...

Chris Kresser: Yeah, definitely no alcohol here. I don’t really recommend alcohol as a main strategy for repleting iron. It’s...

Chris Kresser: I don’t know that that’s fully understood, but I have seen it mentioned in the scientific literature. One...