I’ve been not feeling very peak for a long time now. After a particularly heavy start to this month’s period, I finally went and looked up symptoms of anemia and found that I’m symptom-ridden.  Fatigued, can’t concentrate, insomnia, sore eyes, curved & brittle nails, low body temperature, breathlessness and headaches with activity, etc, etc.

This should surprise no-one. I have heavy periods, I’ve never really eaten red meat and I’ve cut it out of my diet entirely for the last two months. My doctor told me to take iron supplements last year, but I ran out last summer and never got around to buying more.

And yet, ridiculously low heart-rate. What does that mean? I just took my resting heart-rate and it was 58. Am I wrong in thinking that’s scary-low for someone who’s not terribly athletic? Also I’m pretty sure if I’m anemic, my heart’s supposed to be working harder to keep up.

Blech. I’m totally guilty of using the internet as my medical opinion. And mostly when I do that I find people asking questions at Yahoo, and the best answer is always, “WTF are you doing trying to get medical advice on the internet. You should see your damn doctor.”

Kinda reminds me of when I went into labour with Hannah. I got up in the morning, timed a few contractions, broke the news to Ian as we were heading out the door to drop the kids off at daycare. Then we went to the hospital and I was like, “let’s just get a coffee and sit down for a bit first.” And he was like, “uh. Let’s check you in.” And I was like, “no. I just want to be sure.” “Cause god forbid you went to the hospital and said you thought you were in labour and turned out to be wrong.”

I damn hate when I give the medical profession more reason than it already has to treat me like a hypochondriac.