Experiments in Iron Pills

Three weeks ago I wasn't feeling well, waking up with cramped muscles in the back, not having much of an appetite, so weak that a fifteen-minute walk was a daunting prospect and I had to go slowly, and sitting at my desk tormented by nausea and headaches. In addition to that, of course, I was under mental pressure from things that were happening at work. The weekend before that I'd been taking long naps during the day. On the Monday afternoon I left work early because I felt too poorly, and the U-Bahn ride home was one of the worst travel experiences I'd had. But then I fell into bed and felt much better after two hours' sleep.

In the end, after thinking intently about what might be wrong, I went with the hypothesis of anemia. It was a more enticing explanation than my first thought: endometriosis. During a lunch break, I bought iron supplement pills from the organic food store. (I happened to see them there; it's not that I think that nutritionally useful iron derived from plants is chemically all that different.)

After I started swallowing an iron pill every morning, and regularly eating whole grain bread and apples at work, there was a marked improvement. By now I feel more or less like my normal bouncing self, even if I want to reintroduce myself to intense physical effort like beach volleyball and running only gradually.

Weather: heat, humidity, etc. were likely also exacerbating symptoms that might otherwise have been far less perceptible. In any case I thought that it's not like I was seriously ill, but that my 'quality of life' and ability to work were temporarily dented.

Yet: I do not like popping pills if they are not prescribed by a professional, and they remind me of illnesses that my grandfather had, or when as a teenager I needed to take antibacterial medicine and pain pills for a tooth infection and then had horrible back cramps. Also, the last two or three days I've felt nauseated after taking these. (Although when I then researched iron intake on the internet I found that, at 14 mg of iron per daily dose, the pills are arranged to be within the 18 mg ideal intake per US government guidelines.)

I do want to finish the package. But after that, on the other hand, I want to begin eating kidney beans and white beans, lentils, spinach and sardines regularly, so that I'm really just absorbing iron from food.

Anyway, I doubt if this is interesting! and in the end, whether the unwellness was caused by psychological factors more than physical factors or not, I'm just glad it's diminished.