Joyful Start LC

Looking for a treat to help support your milk supply? Look no further.

PS No actual cookies were baked in the making of this recipe.

[Image Description] Holiday "lactation" cookie recipe. See comments for continued description.

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Sadly topical

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Yearly advice before the clocks change this weekend…

Consider this : if your problem is seemingly unsolvable perhaps you are asking the wrong person for help.

It’s highly likely you are not the problem!
Seek help from someone else… someone with more experience and knowledge, more education about the specific issue challenging you.

For example, it’s likely you would receive better care for stroke recovery from a neurologist than from a new intern or a general practitioner.
Not all care providers are equally qualified. Good intentions or a slick business model don’t equal skill.

Yet ANOTHER example that “commonly seen / frequently occurring “ is NOT the same thing as NORMAL!

I’m 17 at my yearly well check-up and my doctor tells me my iron is low. “It’s normal,” she tells me once a young woman starts her cycle. “No worries” I’m told. The doctor gives me a printout of iron-rich foods to consume and sends me on my way.

A year or so later it’s the same, so I’m given an oral iron supplement that affects my digestive track and ultimately does not absorb well enough to give me the boost of iron I need as evidenced by my bloodwork.

Then, pregnancy. I’m pregnant with my first child and again would repeat with the 3 following, my iron levels are considered “low” but also again, “This is normal,” I’m told. The advice is to take my prenatal pills and then be given a similar nutrition handout with iron-rich foods.

Every annual physical and every annual OB/GYN appointment for 25 years!

Yes 25 years, I had low iron. This SOMETIMES shows when you get a CBC (complete blood count) which is essentially a very high-level overview of your health and systems, my Hemoglobin and Hematocrit were always lower than the normal range, but not “low enough” for alarm.

After so many years of hearing this, with no real regimen you start to think it’s not really a big deal . . . until it is!!

Raising kids and taking care of a family is exhausting no question, so when my fatigue took a noticeable dive after 35 I had so many legitimate excuses for it. (Husband is deployed, kids are small, just finished another degree, working long shifts, etc.) and while I was definitely using what energy I did have to do all of the things, that fatigue was more.

😴 Insomnia
📝 Weight fluctuations
😵‍💫dizziness
💪🏾 muscle aches/pains (mostly in my legs)
👀 heavy eyes
😵headaches
🥴increased anxiety
☹️depression
🫢slightly breathless at times
🫠fatigue so intense I could not move some
days
😰digestive issues
🤯migraines

I was certain there was something severely wrong with me. I was desperate for answers. On top of my primary doctors, I saw a rheumatologist, an allergist, a gastroenterologist and not one found anything. While that’s good, it was also confusing. Frustrating is an understatement. “I know my body," I kept telling them. “Something is not right!”

Then, 2 years ago my GYN finally said, “I’m going to send you to a hematologist at the cancer center next door, we need to get to the bottom of this.” I was scared and hopeful at the same time. Could I have some blood disorder that I never knew about? After a FULL iron panel that included many more detailed labs than just a CBC, some of which were:

🩸ferritin
🩸iron binding capacity
🩸iron saturation %
🩸(actual) iron

On top of the low levels we knew, I was also found to have a ferritin level of 2!!! This is almost nonexistent y’all. Ferritin, if you don’t know, is your stores of iron, so when you do lose iron naturally through the loss of blood, your stores replenish it for you. I had no stores. My suitcase if you will, was empty. I was then officially diagnosed with “iron deficiency anemia” likely from heavy consistent menstrual cycles.

So now, now I get to come sit in a big comfy chair every few months with a nice warm blanket and get iron infusion treatments. I’m here for roughly an hour to an hour and a half and they infuse iron directly into my bloodstream. In a week or so I will usually feel like a new woman. Exhaustion be gone!!

I can now feel when my iron is starting to get low because I also know what it feels like after it’s been boosted. This usually helps me stay on top of appointments and infusions so I hopefully never get as low as I was when I started.

Game changer!
Life saver!

So friends, what I learned through this experience is simple and I pass that on to anyone who may be feeling “off," “wonky," “super tired,” or “just not right.”

1. “Normal” and “Common” are NOT the same even though they are many times used interchangeably, even by providers.
2. Please do not dismiss fatigue as simply part of busy life. I am not saying all fatigue or symptoms are iron-related but it could be, and we know our body best.
Speak until someone listens!!!!
3. Most importantly ➡️ Don’t give up on you! Even if it takes 25 years, there’s an answer somewhere and you are worth the research.

Shared with permission from Tia Hawkins-Tea Talks with Tia

Wow!

Just in case you are confused by anything you’ve recently read on this page…

The founder of Joyful Start who is additionally the administrator of this page is additionally a newly published author.

A free link to her article was posted & boosted here last week. As an author she holds control of her intellectual property.

Since that post, spam has flooded the site mentioning copyright infringement. This is all nonsense, only spam to be ignored.
Sorry for the static!

Please if you want information on the topic of the article reach out!

BIG NEWS !
Joyful Start is happy to announce publication of an article we’ve been working on with 3 esteemed colleagues!

We’ve conducted research, and are now sharing best practice / specific protocols, to decrease a known risk associated with surgical or laser care of infants under 6 months of age .

We’ve published in The International Journal of Clinical Pediatrics!
The link is included below.

We’re letting everyone have access to our article, and then we’ll be happy to chat about it as folks have questions.
Please check out this information, and feel free to share with others who you know will be interested:

Minimizing Risk Associated With Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding During Ankyloglossia Release of Infants | Abramczyk | International Journal of Clinical Pediatrics Minimizing Risk Associated With Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding During Ankyloglossia Release of Infants

Rinse & Repeat….

Good information…