A millennial woman who spent most of her life believing she was depressed has revealed the true medical condition behind her struggles.
Lisa Healy, 29, from Toronto, Canada, battled decades of fatigue, weakness and low energy, which affected her mood and was often described as sadness.
Working in commercial real estate, she assumed the stress of the job was weighing her down, prompting her to move to Bali, Indonesia, hoping a new lifestyle would ease her symptoms.
However, it didn’t work. She told Newsweek: “I had no excuse, I’m literally unemployed on an island of Gods, what’s wrong with me?”
Newsweek spoke to Dr. Ravina Bhanot, a general practitioner, she said: “Iron deficiency can mimic depressive symptoms and can lead to misdiagnosis.
“The overlapping symptoms of iron deficiency anemia and depression are: fatigue, low energy, poor concentration, brain fog, irritability, sleep disturbance, headaches, reduced exercise tolerance.”
A Family Connection
In Bali, Healy spent time with her mother, who had lived with similar symptoms for years.
She told Newsweek: “Where I was a weeping mess, she was a dedicated machine. She recently discovered that her body doesn’t process iron correctly. Her iron and ferritin are normal on any test, but it doesn’t get to where it needs to go in the body due to several other deficiencies and hormone imbalances.
“I was like—hey, my iron and ferritin are also usually normal on tests, what if?… And off I went to an endocrinologist for the first time ever. She looked at me, she looked at a thick pile of labs I had done, and diagnosed me with latent anemia, among some other things.”
Bhanot told Newsweek: “If there is a family history of not processing iron, it may be a rare inherited case (like iron-refractory iron deficiency anemia) which is seen in 1 in 1,000,000 cases. Most doctors may never see this condition in their lifetime, but if it is seen, it needs to be seen by a hematology specialist or a genetics specialist.”
What Is Latent Anemia?
Anemia occurs when the blood doesn’t have enough hemoglobin to carry oxygen, most often due to iron deficiency. This makes red blood cells small and pale, causing fatigue, weakness, and shortness of breath.
Newsweek spoke to Bhanot again, who added: “Some people have iron deficiency without anemia (so their hemoglobin is normal on a blood test but they have low stores of iron). This is often what people mean by latent anemia.”
A Lifetime of Symptoms
Growing up, Healy dealt with recurring health issues from the age of 7, including:
- General weakness and fatigue
- Frequent unexplained illnesses
- Persistent low energy, apathy, and sad mood
- Feeling unusually cold
- Dizziness and low blood pressure
- Pale appearance
- Strong cravings for salt and fatty foods
“I was mostly ‘fine,’” she said, adding that she never had a diagnosis. The symptoms continued into her teens and adulthood, and she sought medical advice repeatedly.
Despite this, she was told her struggles were likely psychological.
“No one formally diagnosed me with depression,” she told Newsweek. “But multiple therapists all agreed it’s depression.
“The argument was that if they put this label on me it might hinder my future opportunities with no upside. That didn’t stop me from being very outspoken about my struggles online—I encouraged many people to seek help through my social media presence at that time, so some good came out of it.”
“Other contenders for why I’m so weak and sad all the time were scoliosis (significant rotation of vertebrae in the neck preventing proper blood circulation), hypothyroidism (my labs were on the lower end of normal, I even took a small dose medication for a time), and ‘that’s just how we are’ spoken by my mother.”
Misdiagnosis and Medication
During the coronavirus pandemic, Healy began taking antidepressants.
“It did help a little with the mood, but not the physical weakness and apathy,” she said. “As soon as the world opened up again, I got off the medication and threw myself into fitness, thinking I’d heal myself with the power of protein and endorphins.”
Despite a healthy lifestyle, supplements, and regular exercise, her blood work didn’t reveal deficiencies—until one test in Canada finally showed her iron levels were critically low.
“It kept on going like that until the latest round of labs I got in Canada, my iron was in the red,” she said, referring to the body lacking sufficient iron to produce hemoglobin for red blood cells.
Finding Relief
Today, Healy takes high doses of iron supplements, along with other nutrients such as B12, Omega 3 and 6, vitamin D, magnesium, and iodine.
She said: “I’m supposed to re-do all the blood work soon to check how things are after three months, so fingers crossed that I’d be able to remove some pills and introduce lifestyle changes to get my body what it needs!”
“It’s hard to describe it any other way,” she told Newsweek. “After a couple of weeks of my new medication regimen I opened my eyes one morning and just felt alive.
“Suddenly, I have the energy to just go do things. I’m way more emotionally stable, not crying every other hour, not taking minor issues at work as reasons life is not worth living.
“I’m not irrationally joyous all the time, I still have things that I’m unhappy about, but it’s a different type of unhappy, less all-consuming.”
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