Bad idea to ask that question, I might not like the answer.
Superbowl weekend I developed severe vertigo and nausea and ended up pulling off the road on the way to the hospital and dialing 911 because I couldn’t drive anymore. The doc in the ER pronounced it most likely a virus and gave me valium. Large valiums. I slept for a week solid before I started cutting the doses and made it into a regular Dr. While the vertigo did last “about as long as a cold”, the blood work showed abnormally high iron content.
A subsequent genetic test confirmed that I have double gene Hemochromatosis, a disease affecting about 1 in 100 Americans. It is tremendously under diagnosed and the genetic tests to detect it are fairly new. It also might explain why men in my family haven’t generally lived long (both grandfathers died at 54).
The care is straight forward – weekly blood donations until iron levels drop to normal. This is expected to take several months and is definitely leaving me in a low energy state. After that, either meds or less frequent blood donations are required for the rest of my life to prevent iron buildup and organ damage.
The good news is we caught it early. The bad news is the treatments leave me tired about 4 days out of 7 every week.
[...] I seldom agree with him but he does manage to come up with ideas and get people to adopt them. He says his health is failing and I can totally relate to this. You run out of energy and things that once seemed important take on an air of triviality. [...]