Answers!

A few months back I started feeling really tired. I’m talking, sleeping through alarms and not being able to run farther than a mile with out feeling really fatigued. No matter how much I exercised, I wasn't getting that “happy, wide awake” feeling as before. Instead I just felt weaker and weaker. My heart rate would be really high after just running a mile. It felt like what I imagine an oncoming heart attack might feel like. My migraines were getting more frequent. My over all mood was usually tired and cranky. I also started noticing that when my cycle came around there was A LOT of it, and it was lasting anywhere from 7-8 days. So, I asked my mom her opinion because she’s had several problems like this before and she told me to ask about it at my next check up.

Fast forward to last month, and I was scheduled to have a check-up so I could be put back on birth control. I let them know how I was feeling, what was going on with my body, and they scheduled me to have tests done. Then the flu hit me. Hard. And all I could do was sleep. If I got up too fast, I would get dizzy and one morning I fainted. I called the doctor and they rescheduled my tests for the next morning.

They confirmed that I had the flu, and a sore throat. I had to give a urine sample, they “checked” my thyroid, and drew blood (I fainted for a few second during that too). Then last week I finally received a call from the nurse about my tests results and she said it was confirmed that I was “highly anemic”. Which translates to my body loosing a lot of blood during my cycle which is causing me to have an iron deficiency. This is why I’m always tired, why anytime I got sick it would be really bad, and why I was getting dizzy all of the time. It’s also the cause of the high heart rate, and “heart attack” feelings when I exercise.

Thankfully, there weren't any cysts in my uterus which was something they considered since my family has a history of them. The doctor told me that being put on birth control should help with my cycle, and I needed to get on a multivitamin ASAP. I need to be careful for awhile, at least a month, when it comes to exercising and sudden movements. I was told that when I feel dizzy I need to slow down. Once I've been on birth control and vitamins for at least a month I should start feeling better. After two months I have to go get tests done again to make sure it’s all helping. If not then they said their could be other things we’d have to look into.

For now, I’m just happy to have a reason as to why I was feeling so tired and irritable. At first I thought I was just burnt out, or maybe even pregnant. I thought maybe I was just making excuse for myself when I felt like I couldn't push myself any farther. But now I know it’s not in my head, it’s my body. The best part is that I can fix it and go back to feeling normal. I've grown so tired of the headaches. I’m tired of feeling TIRED. And I've been dying to go for a long run for over a month now. I finally went for one on Sunday, but again I wasn't able to make it that far. Still, I'm grateful that I now have answers. And now I know what I need to do to get back to feeling better. :)