Lower hemoglobin at high altitude- Iron Deficiency?

[Ben]

This is pretty weird. I slept the best I have in months after eating a few muffins. Instead of waking up like a person with the flu (bad coordination, fogginess. tiredness, weakness, etc), I woke up energetic, alert, and refreshed.

Is this symptom of iron deficiency that the muffins may treat with their iron content? I do know that my level of hemoglobin was high, around 17.2 for a couple of years. Now when I try to donate blood, in Denver (high altitude) to that, it is only 15.2 or so. It should be higher in high altitude, but it's lower.

Also keep in mind that with high free testosterone, my hemoglobin should be high like normally. Do I have iron deficiciency or should I go eat some oysters for copper?

I also have thinning hair, apparently. It's not pathologically thin, but my barber noted thin hair. A decent amount ends up on my hands when I shower.

 

[jyb]

I think a thorough iron blood test is worth it if you avoid enriched products and donate blood.

When I look at iron contents of non-enriched food, I find it surprisingly low compared to what the body wastes daily. Let's say 1mg is lost daily, a single blood donation takes out at least 200mg, and one gets 10-20mg weekly mostly from eating liver or oysters. That's assuming you are disciplined about eating those and that iron gets absorbed well. You can see that donating every few months could results in iron reduction. So over the long run...kinda need to check iron levels yourself, if the donation centre doesn't give your detailed blood iron info.