Woman Told She Was Depressed Since Childhood—22 Years Later Comes Diagnosis

A millennial woman who spent most of her life believing that she was depressed revealed the real medical condition behind her difficulties.

Lisa Healy, 29, of Toronto, Canada, fought decades of fatigue, weakness and weak energy, which affected his mood and has often been described as sadness.

Working in commercial real estate, she assumed that the stress of work increases her, which prompted her to move to Bali, Indonesia, hoping that a new life style would facilitate her symptoms.

However, this did not work. She said Nowsweek: “I had no excuse, I am literally unemployed on an island of gods, what is wrong with me?”

Nowsweek spoke to Dr. Ravina Bhanot, a general practitioner, she said: “Iron deficiency can imitate depressive symptoms and can lead to an erroneous diagnosis.

“The symptoms of overlap of anemia and the depression of iron deficiency are: fatigue, low energy, poor concentration, brain fog, irritability, sleep disorders, headaches, tolerance for reduced exercise.”

A family connection

In Bali, Healy spent time with her mother, who lived with similar symptoms for years.

She said Nowsweek: “Where I was a mess while crying, she was a dedicated machine. She recently discovered that her body does not treat iron correctly. Her iron and ferritin are normal on any test, but he does not happen where he has to go to the body because of several other horror deficiencies and imbalances.

“I was like – Hey, my iron and my ferritin are also generally normal on the tests, and if? … And I went to an endocrinologist for the first time. She looked at me, she looked at a bunch of thick laboratories that I had done, and diagnosed me with latent anemia, among other things.”

Bhanot said Nowsweek: “If there are family history of not treating iron, it can be a rare hereditary case (such as iron refractory anemia) which is observed in 1 case on 1,000,000. Most doctors can never see this condition of their life, but if it is observed, it must be seen by a hematology specialist or a genetics specialist.”

What is latent anemia?

Anemia occurs when blood does not have enough hemoglobin to transport oxygen, most often due to iron deficiency. This makes red blood cells small and pale, causing fatigue, weakness and shortness of breath.

Nowsweek once again talked to Bhanot, who added: “Some people have an iron deficiency without anemia (so their hemoglobin is normal during a blood test but they have low iron reserves). This is often what people hear by latent anemia.”

A life of symptoms

Growing up, Healy has dealt with recurrent health problems of the age of 7, in particular:

• General weakness and fatigue
• Frequent unexplained diseases
• Persistent low energy, apathy and sad mood
• Feel cold
• Lurin and low blood pressure
• Pale appearance
• Strong salt and fatty food desires

“I was above all” well “,” she said, adding that she had never had a diagnosis. Symptoms have continued in adolescence and adulthood, and has asked for medical advice on several occasions.

Despite this, he was told that his difficulties were probably psychological.

“No one officially diagnosed me with depression,” she said Nowsweek. “But several therapists have all agreed that it was depression.

“The argument was that if they put this label to me, it could hinder my future opportunities without advantage. This did not prevent me from making myself talk about my online difficulties – I encouraged many people to ask for help thanks to my presence on social networks at that time, so a little good.”

“Other contenders for the reason why I am so weak and sad all the time was scoliosis (significant rotation of the vertebrae in the neck preventing the appropriate blood circulation), hypothyroidism (my laboratories were at the lower end of normal, I even took a little dose medication for a while), and” that’s how we are “spoken by my mother”.

Diagnosis and drugs

During the coronavirus pandemic, Healy began to take antidepressants.

“It helped a little with mood, but not physical weakness and apathy,” she said. “As soon as the world has covered itself again, I left the medication and I embarked on physical form, thinking that I would cure myself with the power of proteins and endorphins.”

Despite a healthy lifestyle, supplements and regular exercises, his blood tests have not revealed gaps – a single test in Canada finally showed that its iron levels were extremely low.

“He continued to continue like this until the last series of laboratories that I obtained in Canada, my iron was in the red,” she said, referring to the body without iron to produce hemoglobin for red blood cells.

Find relief

Today, Healy takes high doses of iron supplements, as well as other nutrients such as B12, omega 3 and 6, vitamin D, magnesium and iodine.

She said: “I am supposed to redo all the blood analyzes soon to check how things are after three months, so the crossed fingers that I could remove pills and introduce changes in lifestyle to get my body what he needs!”

“It is difficult to describe it differently,” she said Nowsweek. “After a few weeks of my new drug diet, I opened my eyes one morning and I felt alive.

“Suddenly, I have the energy of going to do things. I am much more emotionally stable, does not cry every two hours, not taking minor problems at work as a reason why life is not worth living.

“I am not all the time irrationally joyful, I always have things that I am unhappy, but it is a different type of unhappy, less consuming.”