Hmm, based on those results your hemoglobin is low, however the pattern doesn't really look like iron deficiency. With the PCOS do you have a lot of bleeding? It could be that your body is just unable to keep up with the blood loss. You might ask your doctor to check your iron levels to be sure. I think the amount of iron you are eating is probably okay based on the results you posted. If you want to try to get more, you could try an iron supplement, but if you do start at a fairly low dose and go up gradually because it can cause some stomach upset. If you can't find iron supplements, you could try prenatal vitamins which tend to be well balanced and have high levels of iron. It's hard to tell just from the parameters you posted, but I would also be concerned about your vitamin B12 levels. Make sure you are getting the recommended dose of B12, and consider adding a B12 supplement. If you are still having trouble after a couple weeks of this, and your hemoglobin remains low, you should probably have your iron and B12 levels checked. (for the sake of clarity, we usually don't actually check B12, we check some other chemicals in the B12 pathway)
Nutritional Advice33F, currently 150 lbs, 5'6", white. Previous diagnoses: PCOS, migraines with aura, acid reflux, several skin allergies. Medication: None currently. Alcohol: 1-2 glass of red wine per week, no recreational drugs.TL;DR: How the hell is one supposed to eat 18 mg of iron daily?Very bad choices led me to gain a lot of weight in my 20s, got to be a max of ~220 lbs by the end of 2018. GP told me I needed to lose weight, so I did. I started eating healthier and exercising more. For the past 4 months I've been eating below 1400 calories on average. I'm still losing weight, but I started to feel very tired in general, and get easily out of breath while exercising. GP send my to take a blood panel 2 months ago. Results came back and he said I was ok but said that since CBC values came considerably lower than the last few times, I needed to eat more iron rich foods. Since I'm already logging the foods with an app that tells me the nutrients, he said I should aim on getting 18 mg of iron daily, and explained all the ways of maxing iron absorption (vitamin C with heme iron, avoid dairy in same meal, etc).So it's been 6 weeks since I started paying attention to the iron. I use a digital scale, and verified sources (like USDA) to check iron amounts on every food. I still have severe issues trying to reach that daily amount. It seems like the only days I'm able to reach it is when I ether eat beef liver, mussels or a huge amount of spinach. I love spinach, but I don't really enjoy liver or mussels so I have to find ways to have them. Beans, lentils and seeds are good, but I can't have too many since I'm still losing weight. The days I have those with some eggs, I still can't reach 10 mg of iron.Past 2 to 3 weeks have been worse, I feel even more fatigued and dizzy than before. I think because of the pandemic measures in my country, my GP's office have stopped answering phones. I left a voice message but haven't hear back from them yet.So question is.. how do people do it? It seems an insane amount to get daily.If it matters, here's my last BP:Hc: 36%Hb: 11.9 g/dLRBC: 3.880.000 /mm3Colour Index: 79.33%MCV: 92.78 /um3MCH: 30.67 pgMCHC: 33.06 g/dLI would greatly appreciate any input on how to improve my nutrition