Dr Natalie Crawford

So we're dealing with that.

But we can get so far ahead of this.

And looking at these ferritin levels, the transfer, you know, these iron studies before she's actually anemic, which is like the last thing that happens when her red blood cell count drops or they become so small and what we call microcytic, you know, we need to do a better job at recognizing these things.

We're not going to walk around and measure how much blood's coming out because I could maybe squeak out 200 cc's, you know, a period and you could be 300 and we're both doing fine.

You know, we both have grades.

So I think it's really looking at, you know, how much bleeding is too much.

Now, how little is too much, that's probably better.

Yeah.

So iron is an element that is in our diets, and we do tend to store quite a bit of iron in our bodies.

And it's an essential when we look at the structure of the red blood cell and of hemoglobin specifically.

So hemoglobin is the actual molecule that is inside of the red blood cell that carries the oxygen.

So iron is really critical to the formation of healthy iron-carrying red blood cells.

And we store iron in our bodies and a lot in the bone marrow.

And

And it's stored in this particular molecule called ferritin.

So when we're measuring ferritin levels in the blood, that is, you know, the first sign that your iron stores are getting low is when we see these low ferritin levels.

A menstruating woman, yes.

And I do see it in our postmenopausal patients as well.

That's usually nutritional and inflammation related.

So ferritin is also something that will decrease in times of chronic inflammation.