I’m back on the iron tablets because I haven’t been on them for a while. What happens with my iron levels is that I’m on iron tablets for a few months and my iron levels go up. Then I stop taking them and my iron levels go down. I’m self medicating this time around because I haven’t been tested since December so I don’t actually know what my iron levels are. I feel a bit guilty about that, because they’re not the weedy little vitamin tablets you find on the shelf at Boots, they’re proper 200mg turn-your-poo-black ferrous sulfate iron tablets. But you don’t actually need a prescription for them (and it’s cheaper to buy them over the counter than pay for the prescription!) and the leaflet says you can take one per day for prevention of iron deficiency anaemia, so it’s fine really.
I had forgotten how unpleasant the first few days of iron are. I took it at about 6PM yesterday and woke up with painful indigestion at 3 AM.
3AM is a strange time. I received a rather immature and maybe sightly spiteful message on LinkedIn a few days ago from someone from the past I didn’t want to hear from. (Actually it was a few weeks ago, but I didn’t see it until a few days ago). It didn’t upset me. I just deleted my LinkedIn account because it’s not like it’s useful. I don’t generally ‘do’ social media under my own name so it was a bit of an odd thing for me to have anyway. I didn’t find it at all useful when looking for jobs, and now I’m not looking, it makes no real sense to have an account. So, I got a message which I won’t dignify with further details, I shrugged and closed the account. Problem solved. Fine.
Not fine at 3AM. Very upsetting at 3AM. I felt very upset and anxious about the whole thing.
Also upsetting was that I need to cancel my Amazon Prime trial before they charge me. It was urgently important at 3 AM, so I got my phone out and saw to it.
Anyway. I took the iron tablet with lunch today, so hopefully I’ll sleep better. I’ve had a somewhat uncomfortable gastrointestinal tract since then. Urrrrgh.
From memory this only lasts a few days, so hopefully it’ll be settling tomorrow.
Rambles 
Maybe you can try take it at a different time so it doesn’t wake you?
💕💕💕💕💕💕
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It’s hard to time it really, it needs to be taken several hours between certain foods and drinks (I need a 3 hour gap with no tea!). It should settle in a few days though.
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Wow! Good luck…
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Can you tell that your iron levels are getting low? eg are you getting more fatigued? Why feel guilty? They’re there for the taking. It’s not just that it’s cheaper for you to get them not on prescription, it’s cheaper for the NHS too. There’s so much bureaucracy involved that puts dealing with prescriptions way over the medicine cost.
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I don’t feel any symptoms at the moment except a vague suspicion that my running isn’t quite as fast as it should be (though that could have other reasons)! In the past, I get anaemic, then I spend a few months on tablets, then my ferritin levels are nice and high, then six months later they’re borderline. So I decided to take the tablets every so often to stop that from happening. Iron is a strange thing because there’s a lag time between your iron stores getting low and your red blood cell count getting low (which is what causes the symptoms), and I think there’s an intermediate stage where your blood cells just get smaller.
Actually I’m due a blood test now but I can’t go and have it done at the moment because of the lockdown!
I hadn’t thought about it being cheaper for the NHS, that’s a nice consideration!
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Ah, I thought things like blood tests were still going ahead. Maybe it’s different up here. The doctors texted the other day to say please still contact them with non-Covid health concerns, & are open on bank holidays. Everything is phone screening, then either phone or in-person appointments as required.
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Hmm I’m not sure actually. It said on the letter to wait until after social distancing to get it done though. So I will 🙂 it’s not really urgent for me
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Not sure if this is any use to you, it was in the “more” section below your post.
https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/33272620/posts/1282
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