56

40

• Knuckle pain in fingers
• Pain in joints like hips or knees
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Bloat
• Shaking / trembling

Knuckle and joint pain was the most frequent, much worse when barometric pressure changed and rain came. Constipation and diarrhea took turns with each other.

Eventually, the symptoms were such that I couldn’t go back to the more physical jobs that I liked to do. That included things around the house and in the yard.

It was just this past May [of 2020] that I found out, When the covid-19 lockdown first started in March, one of the early suggestions going around in nutritional circles was to up your intake of vitamin C and Zinc especially the liposomal vitamin C, highly absorbable. So I did that starting in the beginning of April…by the mid to end of April I had become increasingly jaundiced and exhausted all the time and I could not keep food down, so my doctor ran tests and found it.

I remember for sure my ferritin levels were 4044, iron at its highest was well over 2,000, I don’t recall at the moment other numbers. Everything was high like that, including liver and biliary numbers

I have two copies of the mutation, got it from both parents.

About all he said was to stop eating red meat, eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. That’s all he I said at the beginning. Everything else I learned through researching and reading. But that was after I binge-watched Netflix for two days because I was so overwhelmed when I first started trying to look into it

“What is that?”

Absolutely the number one response.

Once I changed my diet and had anti-nausea medication and was able to keep some food down, I slowly started feeling better. My numbers came down significantly within a month. Naturally I quit taking that vitamin C and I researched every single ingredient in every single supplement and herb I was taking to determine if it was good for the liver and for hemochromatosis.

It’s okay to be overwhelmed, it’s okay to feel alone but just know you are not alone. And it’s okay at the beginning to feel like you’ve turned into a freaking chemist trying to figure out what to eat when and with what.

It’s not easy making big diet changes, don’t expect to be perfect at it. But do it! It makes a huge difference! That was the only change I made when my numbers came down, by the time my first phlebotomy happened, my numbers were almost down to normal

I live in Dallas Texas, I have four daughters and two grandchildren and a son-in-law, both of my parents are still alive and both of them have quite a bit of medical stuff going on and I wonder how much of it was due to iron.

I was Triple National gold medalist in competitive swimming and I’m looking forward to feeling like being much more active very soon.