Tuesday, November 30, 2010

maybe not my favorite


Growing up I had a lot of favorite things:

favorite color, green

a favorite pair of jeans

a favorite hair style,

a favorite number, 9

just to list a few. All of them have changed over the years, my favorite color now is grey, and of course my fav jeans don't fit anymore, and I don't do my hair like I used to (thank goodness), but my favorite number has remained the same .... 9. Any form of it 99 9999 999999 and so on. I've always liked this number ... it was how many kids I was going to have, you seen I wrote was right? It was my basket ball number in Jr. High and tends to be the number I always pick when I have to choose between 1 and 10 or even 1 to 100.


Yesterday, however, I was called by the clinic to let me know that my Dr wanted me to start taking iron pills because my hemoglobin was at 99. I asked what that meant, the nurse informed that it was low and at that number they sometimes start doing blood transfusions. But they wanted me to try getting my numbers up by taking iron before going that extreem.
This got me thinking so I looked up Hemoglobin and this is what I found:


Women's normal ranges should be in 120 g/l to 160 g/l (12.0 g/dl to 16.0 g/dl). Mine is at 99 g/l (9.9 g/dl) which means:


I found this on a site that gives you info about giving blood, so it shows the acceptable lowest level to be able to donate.

Do you see what I see? I guess I'm leaning towards being anemic ... hopefully not or for long as I am now trying to build up my hemoglobin with iron pills.

Not loving seeing the number 9 in this result but I still think it's my favorite number.


6 comments:

Natalie said...

no wonder they won't take my blood. I don't think I've ever been above 120! it's normal for women to be low, but good for your doc for putting you on iron pills. just remember to eat lots of fibre and drink lots of water (they tend to cause constipation)

TinaLaRae said...

I'm not sure if I'm normally this low or if it's a result from the miscarriage I had 2 weeks ago? Anyway thank for the advice, fiber 1 bars and my ice water here I come! lol

Jenie said...

I have always had extremely low levels and slow release iron pills work very well for me, without any side effects.

Godlonton Family Adventures said...

Spinach, red meat, and baby cereal! Oh and liver if you can handle it (EEWWW!) But good luck. Cooper is low iron and we add baby cereal to his oatmeal and it helps. Hope you get feeling better!

Kathy T. said...

Not so fun! I hope get better. I'm kinda glad my favourite jeans don't fit anymore - pretty sure my kids would die if they'd see me in those suckers.

Unknown said...

Hey Tina you don't have to buy Iron pills, I've got tons here that I haven't used because I'm not good at taking pills. I'll pop them on over sometime :)