Posts by Grace Castillo13

I was thinking a little bit about Duvnjak 🙂

I guess the score is looking pretty great considering how we've been playing lately...🙄

The semifinals are finally here!

I guess Bicanic has totally lost his mind 🙂

Angela Smith53 said:I'm 45, and I honestly can't wrap my head around what's happening with my period lately. I've seen my gynecologist five times over the last six months, and everything comes back perfect—no cysts, no signs of menopause, ovaries look fine, uterus looks normal, and my Pap smear was flawless. Everything is technically "healthy," yet my cycle is a complete mess. Could this be related to stress, since I'm currently going through the diagnostic process for another health issue? Honestly, I think I'm losing my mind because of it; sometimes it lasts for three weeks, then disappears, then comes back normally, and now it's acting up again in just a week. I can't even track it anymore. My doctor keeps telling me I don't need any hormone therapy or anything, just that these are isolated episodes that happen occasionally, but this is the fifth time in nine months. Even though all my tests are clear, my cycle is totally wild. Is it possible for such a long period of stress to throw everything out of whack?

I mean, it definitely could. I guess our bodies pick up on even the smallest bit of tension, especially if that stress just lingers for a long time. Maybe try to find a way to handle or ease whatever is causing the stress if you're able to at all.

In my own experience, my ovaries actually became polycystic because of a long stretch of intense stress, and that lasted for about a year—roughly as long as the stress itself. It wasn't until things started settling down that everything finally returned to normal, and I've been okay since then.

I wouldn't worry too much about it right now. I suppose that stress just has to go somewhere. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that you can get through this stressful patch soon.🙂

vividsailor7 said:This kind of makes me think about a different condition on the HFE panel.

🙂 I really hope you guys are right...

Anyway, I wanted to share this snippet from a post Nicholas Myers shared back on December 3rd, 2012, in this thread (post #3116):

In heterozygotes, you often see elevated transferrin saturation even though ferritin levels usually stay within the normal range. Even for homozygotes, who are at a much higher risk for iron buildup, some studies suggest that up to 50% of women and 20% of men don't actually show elevated ferritin levels.

It seems like there might be other genes involved that affect how ferritin levels turn out, just like the conclusion mentions.

Because of that, a lot of experts believe transferrin saturation is actually a more sensitive screening tool, since you need a much larger amount of iron accumulation to bump up the ferritin compared to what it takes to raise the saturation.

Still, it raises a fair question—what’s the actual point of a hemochromatosis diagnosis if the ferritin isn't high (based, say, on saturation levels and a confirmed mutation), especially when treatment is mostly aimed at lowering ferritin in the first place?

I guess I don't really have an answer for that. I'll leave it to Dr. Hrvoj, since hemochromatosis is really more of a gastroenterologist's specialty anyway.

I just wanted to mention that, based on what's written, it looks like a diagnosis is possible even without high ferritin.

I don't really want to mess around with this and end up with something like liver cirrhosis, so I think I'll probably just go ahead and get that HFE gene test done. Thanks for the input, though!

vividsailor7 said:First off, I'm not sure why you're thinking it's hemochromatosis, because the other results look totally normal and don't mention anything about it.

Well, looking at the symptoms, I guess it could be a possibility. What's really weighing on my mind, though, is this transferrin saturation level. About three years ago it was sitting at 31%, then a year ago it hit 44%, and now it's climbed up to 48%.
I think I read somewhere that for women who still have their periods, it probably shouldn't go above 45%, and that anything higher than that might point toward hemochromatosis.

So, I just got some parts of my lab results back from about five days ago (I've put the reference ranges in parentheses for you here):

Iron 25 (8 - 30) — it's been hovering around 28 or 29 lately, I think.

TIBC 52 (49 - 75)

UIBC 27 (26 - 59)

Ferritin 50 (13 - 150)

Transferrin saturation (which I guess you get by dividing the iron value by the TIBC) comes out to about 48%.

I was wondering if these kinds of numbers might point toward HFE?

I've been dealing with this awful fatigue for about a year and a half now, along with ringing in my ears, aching ligaments, really light periods with super thick blood, a dull ache under my right ribs where it feels like my liver might be enlarged, and I often have green stools. All my specialist tests have come back normal so far. Honestly, my period days are probably the only time during the month when I actually feel okay. I'm 38 years old.

I guess maybe Gomez should try to make up for this win by doing whatever he can to get Ball on the national team for the game against France.

🙂

Way to go, Dane! 🙏

I guess this really is a fantastic generation 🙏

Landin 🙏 🙏 🙏

There's really only one Ivano...🙏🙏