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Ana had been running since she was 25. Marathons. Consistent training. A clean diet she had spent years building with care. Now 38, staying active was still a core part of who she was.

So one afternoon when she laced up for a longer run with a different route, she didn't think much of it.

"I was so sore for like 5 or 6 days."

At first, she chalked it up to fatigue. Maybe she was just inflamed. Maybe it was just motherhood.

But it continued. Muscles that felt like they couldn't recover. Twitching. Shortness of breath on a staircase. A deep, knotted soreness that felt like she had "lifted tons of weights."

She knew she needed answers.

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The decision to take control

As a mother of 2 young kids, being tired had an easy explanation. 

But appointment after appointment left her with no real clarity. She saw specialists. She got imaging. She had nerve testing. She kept trying to explain what she was feeling. And still, she felt dismissed.

It seemed like nobody was listening.

She had followed Mark Hyman, M.D. for years and had heard about Function, but hadn’t felt the need to join yet. 

After leaving yet another doctor’s visit with no answers, she sat in her car and made a decision.

"I was desperate. I was like, that’s it, I’m doing it myself.”

She signed up for Function.

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The marker she never knew

When her results arrived, 1 number stood out.

Her ferritin was 14 ng/mL, below the standard reference range of 16–232 ng/mL.

Ana had never heard of Ferritin before so she started researching.

Iron gets most of the attention. But Ferritin, the protein that stores iron in the body, tells a more complete story. A person can have normal blood iron levels and still be severely depleted in Ferritin, a pattern particularly common in women with heavy menstrual cycles.

Ana had gone 14 years without eating red meat. Through 2 back-to-back pregnancies, her iron levels always looked fine.

But her Ferritin was never tested. Meanwhile, suspicious symptoms had been building up for years. Brittle hair, brain fog. Even heart palpitations.

Its progression is just so slow that now looking back, I see clearly that things were off for a while.

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The fix 

Ana began taking iron supplements and followed all the protocols carefully. About 2 weeks in, something shifted.

I got this surge of energy. Extreme focus. My brain fog that's been sitting there for years after having kids literally dissipated.

She started running faster. Recovering from her workouts better.

But her Ferritin was slow to rebuild. 

After 4 months of supplements, she repeated her labs through Function and saw that it had climbed from 14 ng/mL to 23 ng/mL. It was still too low. 

When she returned to heavier training, the symptoms came back almost overnight.

After months of advocating for herself, she got a referral to a hematologist.

The hematologist reviewed her labs, saw how slowly the supplements had moved the number, and started her on iron infusions.

5 total. Once a week.

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“I feel like myself.”

After her second and third infusions, the muscle aches disappeared. The heart palpitations stopped. The shortness of breath was gone. The brain fog lifted completely.

In the months before treatment, Ana had been crying nearly every day. She hadn't connected it to iron. Both she and her husband noticed her mood had improved. 

I feel so normal. I feel like myself. I am a better mom and a better wife because I simply have the energy to do things with them.

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A message to women

For Ana, having more visibility into her health changed the conversation. It gave her a place to start. It gave her language to explain what she was feeling. 

Now she takes every opportunity to tell her story. 

I want women specifically to check their iron.

Especially mothers. Especially women who are busy taking care of everyone else. Especially women who have gotten used to feeling off.

“Don’t ignore what your body is telling you.”

“Function is power.”

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