08/28/2026
Ferritin of 14. Four doctors. Four "normal" labs.
She was 46, autoimmune thyroid disease, vegan for ten years — and she sat in my office apologizing for crying.
Here's what nobody told her: autoimmune disease raises the bill. Your immune system runs hot around the clock, burning through raw materials, and almost nobody adjusts what's coming in to match. Menopause doesn't end that. The burn doesn't stop.
And you don't build blood from iron. Step one is glycine, an amino acid concentrated in animal protein. Iron gets added at the end — which is why iron alone so often does nothing.
Ten years of a diet that's fine for most people. She wasn't most people.
Ask what your ferritin number was. Not whether it was "normal."
Drop your ferritin number in the comments. I want to see how many of you are sitting under 30 and were told you were fine.