Thank you for the reply. That's very interesting. Could that be the case even with a good diet? I eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. What kind of blood markers would be good to test here?

@yerrag thank you for taking the time to write about your experience. There are some very helpful things for me to think about there, and its great to see that people are willing to help out with suggestions on this board. I hope you're on the right road in your own journey.

Re the diagnosis, the doc got me to do a genetic test, which showed that I had inherited copies of the gene from both parents. I also have some family members who have been diagnosed. My understanding was that that was fairly conclusive. I hope that's not wrong, because I took some comfort in knowing that something has been identified with a clear path to treatment!

Finding somebody with the expertise and the motivation to help is very difficult. I think it's the case for any specialist knowledge (finding a good lawyer, a good mechanic, etc.) The challenge is in building enough knowledge myself to do some informed preliminary diagnostics so that I can ask the right questions of a doctor, and advocate for certain blood tests, etc. I'm very much at the start of my journey here, as I've been lucky enough to have very little contact with doctors throughout my life and no illnesses that have crystallised into anything close to a diagnosis. I will try to dig out blood tests later and post them here.

Hello,

First time poster here. This place was suggested on reddit as an alternative to the Ray Peat Forum. I've really enjoyed reading from Peat influenced types on twitter and have listened to a few podcasts. I like the holistic approach to health and energy. If some of you wouldn't mind helping out a noob with some reading suggestions, I would be very grateful.

I've recently got a genetic hemochromatosis diagnosis. My ferritin was very high - almost 1400 last year. Doctors are putting me on a course of phlebotomy, with the aim of taking it down to 100 or so. I understand this can take about a year. The specialist I was referred to didn't seem very proactive about looking at potentially related symptoms, I read her out a list of issues, but think I delivered it in a spergy way which made me come across like a hypocondriac. So I would like to become proactive about this myself.

I'm Irish, and hemochromatosis is very common here. Theories I've heard to explain the prevalance are: historic diets very high in dairy, and allowing for better survival rates in famine conditions (I remember seeing something recently that suggested that patients with high ferritin had better survival rates when intubated for covid). As a teenager, I would drink about two litres of milk per day, but stopped this in my 20s. I've only recently started to drink milk again to take advantage of its inhibition of iron absorbtion.

I suspect I may be hyperthyroidic. I'm quite tall and lean (190cm/82kg). I run a high body temprature (subjective feeling - haven't measured it), have a very fast metabolism, am always hungry and find it difficult to put on weight (with three sessions per week strength training for the past two years). Something funny is going on with my heart (it isn't high blood pressure - doctor is going to check for arrhythmia, which correlates with hemochromatosis). I suspect I'm weaker than I should be after my training. My diet and sleep schedule is fairly good. I oscillate between high energy and fatigue. I'm fairly sensitive to caffeine and sugar, and with very enough of either, I can go into what feels like a hyperglycemic state.

The questions I have for the forum are:

[1] Is there any reading you could suggest that relates to these topics?
[2] What metrics would you suggest I measure via blood tests, etc to properly assess myself? (I can post some bloods here if that's helpful).

I'm going to hit 40 soon, and would like to increase strength, bone density, muscle mass and joint health.