My Son is ADHD and Severly Anemic

Not too long ago, we had a lot of blood work done for our son at the recommendation of the behaviorist doctor we are seeing for his ADHD.  She recommended this blood work because she felt it was important to look at certain levels and whatnot because so much could be going on that his not helping him when it comes to his ADHD, sleeping issues at night, etc.

Unfortunately our insurance did not pay a single bit of the blood work, which is totally bullshit, but that’s insurance companies for you.  However, after seeing the results of the blood work, paying that $400 for the tests isn’t such a big deal to me anymore.

The blood work showed that my son is severely anemic.  He had some other low issues, but the doctor feels they are related to the anemia so we are treating the anemia with iron supplements.  So much can be explained by his anemia.  His ability to fall asleep at night, the dark circles under his eyes all the time despite how much or how little sleep he gets…it can also explain some of his ADHD symptoms!

I am not naive enough to believe that once we get his iron level back where it should be that he will be miraculously cured and no longer be ADHD.  I think ADD is something my son will always struggle with, however I do believe that it is quite possible that some of the hyperactivity symptoms could be majorly helped once we get the iron level back up.  In fact, I just got done reading some articles stating that there is a HUGE correlation between anemia and adhd.

After looking at the results, I just sat on my kitchen floor and cried and cried.  You don’t know how hard I’ve been on myself about my son and his ADHD.  The dirty looks I have to endure when we are out and he gets a tad out of control; or being told that I am a bad mother because if I was a good mother, he wouldn’t be ADHD –for real, I was told that.  Even though I know those people who gave me the looks and told me I was a bad mother because my bad mothering made my kid adhd are stupid, it still got to me from time to time (or all the time) and really took a toll on me.  But now I feel as if I have another piece of information to help me be an EVEN better mother than I already was to help my son overcome any ADHD issues that may have always been out of our control because we had no idea he was anemic.

The last article I read stated that any child that is ADHD should have their iron level tested because the correlation between ADHD and low iron is so high…so do it.  It can’t hurt (besides a slight poke in the arm)…you may, just like me, get a piece of the puzzle that has been missing.