Iron deficiency: The most common reason for fatigue and feeling cold
Iron deficiency symptoms:

- Feeling tired all of the time
- Feeling cold all of the time
- Restless sleep
- Weak nails
- Pale nailbeds (refer to picture)
- Restless leg syndrome
- Muscles spasms
- Shortness of breath when trying to exercise
- Palpitations
- Pale skin
- Hair loss
- Low blood pressure
- Depression and post-partum depression
- Chronic fatigue
- Brain fog
- Random sharp stabbing left-sided chest pain
- Poor blood sugar control
- Dark bags under eyes (pale skin reveals the dark veins in that area)
- Heavy periods
- painful periods
- Easy bleeding
- Easy bruising
- Low motivation
- Constipation
Why do I have low iron symptoms but my doctor says I'm fine?
Proper ferritin reference ranges
Ferritin (ug/L)
|
Interpretation
|
<12
|
Iron deficiency
|
12-29
|
Depleted iron stores
|
30-79
|
Reduced iron stores
|
80-150
|
Adequate iron stores
|
CBC (complete blood count) and iron levels
Why low iron causes you to feel cold
Conditions which have similar symptoms to iron deficiency
Causes of iron deficiency
- Inadequate iron intake
- If you’re not consuming iron you won’t be able to use it or store it.
- Vegetarian or vegan diet
- You absorb approximately 2-18% of iron from plant sources, but 50-80% from animal sources as long as your digestion is up to par.
- Wheat and bran consumption
- I’ve had numerous patients whose ferritin wouldn’t budge until I took them off of wheat. Most likely because wheat was causing inflammation of the intestines so they weren’t absorbing anything. A couple of other possible reasons are phytic acid and pesticide exposure.
- Dairy consumption
- Same deal as wheat. I’ve had quite a few patients whose ferritin would not increase until I got them to stop consuming all dairy.
- Food sensitivities
- If your abdomen is bloated you’re not going to be absorbing nutrients optimally
- Pregnancy and breastfeeding
- Your baby will take quite a bit of iron from you during your pregnancy and through breast milk.
- Diarrhea
- If food is taking the fast lane through you, you won’t have time to absorb its goods.
- Excess intake of black coffee or black tea
- The tannins in black coffee or tea are used to turn cowhides into leather. If we are constantly exposed to them we’ll decrease absorption of all nutrients. In Hemochromatosis (iron overload), patients are instructed to consume black drinks liberally to prevent absorption of iron.
- Donating blood
- You’ll drop about 20-40 units of ferritin each time you donate blood. Just because your hemoglobin is fine doesn’t mean your ferritin is. Get your ferritin checked before you donate blood.
- Heavy periods
- If you’re bleeding out more iron than you’re consuming you’re going to get low iron stores.
- Celiac disease
- All nutrients are deficient in this condition
- Acid blocker medications
- Proton pump inhibitors like Nexium, Prevacid and Pantaloc are designed to prevent stomach acid secretion. We need stomach acid in order to break down food to absorb its nutrients. Long-term use of these medications will cause an iron deficiency, along with basically other nutrient deficiency.This is the most common reason why men usually have an iron deficiency.
- Stress
- If you’re in fight or flight mode, blood is shunted from your intestines to your muscles. As a result of this, your body will be prepared to run away from things rather than break down food and absorb nutrients from it.
- Excess caffeine
- Same reason as stress. Caffeine is basically synthetic stress so it has the same effect. The caffeine and tannins in coffee are a bad combo for causing an iron deficiency.
- Low stomach acid (hypochlorhydria)
- if you can't break foods down properly you won't be able to get iron from it. This can be due to a high carbohydrate diet, zinc deficiency, stress, acid blockers, anxiety, eating on the go, and several other reasons.
- Colon cancer
- Sometimes the first sign of colon cancer is an iron deficiency anemia.
Proper iron supplementation
Not testing ferritin can be irresponsible
Thanks for reading! Please share this with any of your friends who have been diagnosed with an iron deficiency or who have the symptoms I mentioned. No one has to, or should live with this condition. Also if you learned from this and would like an update every time I post new stuff please sign up for my email list here. Also, check out my article on IBS if you have digestive issues that could be contributing towards iron deficiency.
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Thanks,
Dr Justin Gallant ND