Overcoming fatigue: my story of running, periods, and iron deficiency (anemia)
In 2015 I won the entry lottery to run the Chicago Marathon. But as I tried to train I just couldn’t. I felt so tired. I didn’t know why.
Previously I had run:
2013 Philadelphia Marathon (26.2 miles), a road race
2014 NYC Marathon, a road race
In 2015 I ran a 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) and was so slow. I stopped running until I did a 5k in 2017. I felt so tired training for the 5k. I thought, "well, I guess I can't be a runner anymore". I ran two more 5k races in the first half of 2018 and just could not seem to pick up my pace or make any headway in my training without feeling drained.
Finally last summer, summer 2018, I went to visit my family's doctor in my hometown, the one who diagnosed my cervical pre-cancer in 2011 (after a false negative pap by another clinic, yikes!). I told him I had been feeling light headed when I stood up and that I'd had the symptoms for years. He ordered bloodwork and upon receiving the results, diagnosed me with anemia, iron deficiency. I had visited two different doctors in 2016 and neither diagnosed the anemia.
"Anemia is a condition that develops when your blood lacks enough healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a main part of red blood cells and binds oxygen. If you have too few or abnormal red blood cells, or your hemoglobin is abnormal or low, the cells in your body will not get enough oxygen." (from WebMd, https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/understanding-anemia-basics)
He recommended I take:
B-12 supplements. Methlycobalmin is the most bio-available form.
Eat red meat 3x/week OR take a liquid iron supplement.
I eat vegetarian so the red meat wasn't going to happen.
Even after the diagnosis I still waited to buy these needed supplements. I was moving across the country from California to Boston and didn't want more things to pack. But on my drive, after long days of driving, my symptoms of light-headedness got worse, including one day of severe vertigo while driving. Vertigo is when the body can no longer distinguish up from down and everything swirls.
I bought the supplements I needed at Whole Foods in Durham, NC the next day and started taking them so I could finish my final days of driving. When I arrived in Boston I started running again.
Wow I had more energy! The runs felt great! The light-headedness went away after taking the B-12 and Iron for about 2 months. I felt some anger at having not received this diagnosis earlier, despite visiting doctors and describing my symptoms.
Besides eating vegetarian, another cause of anemia can be heavy bleeding during periods. For me the timing makes sense as a cause. I got a copper IUD, a form of birth control, put in during the Fall of 2013, when I was training for my first marathon. Women should not be allowed to get those copper ones! Omg I bled SO MUCH. I was filling up my 30ml Diva Cup with blood while on my period about 4-5x a day for 5 days. Before the copper IUD my periods were about 5-10ml 2x a day for 4 days.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska
I thought my body would get used to the copper IUD and stop bleeding so much but that never happened. I finally got the IUD taken out the summer of 2017 and replaced with a hormonal IUD called Mirena. Periods are now back to normal. I wish I had done it sooner!
I’ll always be mad it took so many doctor’s visits to get this correct diagnosis. Feels like I wasted years of not being able to run.
All that loss of blood from 2013-2017 caused my loss of iron. It was also when I started feeling light-headed all the time and had to stop running due to fatigue. My doctor said that as long as I have a period and am not eating red meat, I need to be taking a supplement. Each month women who have periods lose blood and iron.
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This blog is not medical advice and I'm not a medical professional. If you experience fatigue, light-headedness, vertigo, heavy periods, etc, visit your doctor and let them help you find out what's going on. My one personal story is the not the same as scientific evidence. You can do your own research by visiting https://scholar.google.com and typing in "iron deficiency". Please be skeptical of all health-related personal blogs on the internet. For more on how to be a critical thinker, especially as it relates to medicine and wellness, check out the podcast The Skeptics Guide to the Universe and the blog Science-Based Medicine.