Hannah's WaCkY Blood Work, Anemia and Pica

We had an appointment last week for Hannah because her pica has not resolved. We knew it was iron deficiency anemia induced pica and we took steps to give her an iron rich diet, iron/protein shakes and reduced her milk (she gets 3/4 water and 1/4 2% milk in her cup). Well after 3 months of doing that, we have still not had a change in her. In fact the last few weeks it has gotten worse. They ordered repeat blood work that day and we waited for the results.

Yesterday I got the blood results of the FULL panel and they were alllll over the place! Most things were circled with either an H (high) or L (low). Which of course, freaked me out! I knew what most of it said but didn't know how to interpret it. Our primary Doc is on vacation and no one else was "comfortable" reading it, so the nurse was kind enough to email the Dr on vacation and we waited for a response on the "diagnosis" and recommendation. That was a long 24 hours!

This morning we hear that she is in fact very anemic because her body is not processing the iron it is receiving and her iron stores are non-existent. 

So we have to do 3 things:

1. We have to not only keep her on a high iron diet but add a daily iron supplement.

2. We also have to add vitamin C to help with the iron absorption (and provide citrus fruits/juices)

3. Possibly take her off cow's milk. I say possibly because I don't know yet what they want us to do.  "We" are thinking that the milk is prohibiting the absorption of the iron and her vitamin B12 was pretty high. We have reduced her milk intake as much as we can, but she loves it, so hopefully it is something that can be figured out pretty quickly. We see the nutritionist on Monday so we'll know then!

They told us that normally it takes your body 2 months of iron supplements to see a difference in labs, they are expecting her to take twice as long because of how depleted she is then another 6-12 months to build up her iron stores.

The PICA is present because she has a more severe case of iron deficiency anemia. So hopefully once her iron is leveled out the pica will disappear and her normal appetite will reappear!


I'm glad it wasn't something more "serious" and that with a lot of work, we can get this all straightened out! She's worth it and I'm just so thankful that besides these problems she is otherwise healthy!