Iron + Ferritin 5 month progress update

Let's go over my iron panel results. I finally got retested after three months. My ferritin was at a 9 in March, and then it was at a 38 in the beginning of May. And now, after three more months of supplementing, I am at a whopping 56. So let's talk about what this means. Um, as you can see, I started out at a 9 in the middle of March. I was in the red, like, barely even on the chart. And I slowly climbed up in May, and now I'm at 56, which is still on the lower end of the normal range, but I'm well within the green, so I'm really happy about that. Transferrin saturation went from an 11% in the beginning of March, as you can see in the red, to a 22%. So I doubled my saturation. Total binding capacity for iron is, like, the amount that your blood still has to absorb iron. Before, it was really high, which means I had a lot of capacity to absorb iron, I just didn't have enough. Now I'm at a 38. You can see in May, it was a lot lower than it is now. Well, not a lot lower, but like it was nearing the bottom of the range. So I think this is actually a good place to be. I'm not quite sure. Total iron went from a 42 to a 69. And something to point out here is that 42 is still green. You can see that it is very close to the red, but it is still green. And when I first got tested, I didn't have ferritin tested, so everything was still green, but I was having all of the symptoms of severe iron deficiency. Even if your numbers are green, make sure you check the scale. If you were, like, one point away from being in the red, I would consider that still being in the red. And you should definitely get your ferritin and other things tested. Same thing with hemoglobin, because hemoglobin is the last thing to drop in terms of deficiency. Ferritin would be the first thing to drop, then your total iron, then your hemoglobin. Hemoglobin doesn't tell the full story. But coming back to ferritin, I am at a 56 now. I am still not happy with, because I want to get to, like, 70 or 100, especially for my hair, since I've been experiencing a lot of hair loss due to this iron deficiency. I wanna get my ferritin up as high as possible and, like, be on the upper half of this green range. My progress was really fast the first two months that I was supplementing because I was very strict about my regimen about taking the iron pills every single morning on an empty stomach, not eating any food or drinking any caffeine within the first two hours of taking those pills. And in the last three months, I will admit I have fallen off the train a little bit. Yes, I do still take the iron pills, but I'm nowhere near as strict, especially with eating food and drinking caffeine. I've started drinking like half caff. I've been trying to get back to living my life as normally as possible without having this iron deficiency regimen rule over my life. But seeing that my progress has slowed down is definitely a wake up call and I think I will be spending at least the next month going back to that strict regimen. With that also being said, since I am in a comfortable green range with my ferritin, I don't feel the rush to go back and like, get tested within the next 3 months. Like, I don't wanna prioritize getting my ferritin to 100 at like the top of my to do list for my life. Like, I wanna have fun, I wanna summer, I wanna like, do all the things and then check back in either at the end of the year or maybe even next year and then just see where I'm at. Yeah, those have been my results and progress throughout this year. I hope this helps explain the iron panel a little bit more. Let me know if you have any questions.