Do you have symptoms of iron deficiency, like feeling tired all the time, low energy, shortness of breath, or pale skin? Perhaps you have heavy periods, are pregnant, or regularly take steroids or NSAIDs like ibuprofen — all of which can increase your risk of iron deficiency.
Get a full picture of your iron status with our intravenous test, which checks for signs of iron deficiency, iron overload, and can tell you if your iron levels are in the normal range.
Do you have symptoms of iron deficiency, like feeling tired all the time, low energy, shortness of breath, or pale skin? Perhaps you have heavy periods, are pregnant, or regularly take steroids or NSAIDs like ibuprofen — all of which can increase your risk of iron deficiency.
Our at-home iron test measures the amount of iron carried in your blood and stored in your body, to help identify low iron levels.
Iron is an essential mineral that’s needed to make haemoglobin, a protein found in red blood cells that helps transport oxygen around your body. It also plays an important role in supporting your immune system, maintaining energy levels, and regulating body temperature.
When your iron level is low, you can feel tired and be more susceptible to illnesses and infections. And a severe lack of iron could lead to iron deficiency anaemia, which causes fatigue, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations.
Our easy finger-prick iron test checks several biomarkers to give you a full picture of your iron levels. As the iron level in your blood fluctuates daily, based on the iron you get from your diet, this test also measures ferritin — a protein used to store iron in your body. Ferritin is almost always the best measure of your iron status as it’s more stable.
Low iron levels are most caused by blood loss, such as heavy periods or internal bleeding (often in the digestive tract). You’re at greater risk if you regularly take steroids, blood thinners, or drugs like ibuprofen. Other causes of iron deficiency include pregnancy, a low-iron diet, or bowel conditions like coeliac disease and inflammatory bowel disease.
Ferritin levels may be raised with conditions such as infection, inflammation, liver or renal conditions, or chronic alcohol consumption. However, our test also checks an inflammatory marker (HS-CRP) to help distinguish between some of these causes.
Iron is a mineral that is essential for life. It is a component of haemoglobin, a protein in our red blood cells that is responsible for transporting oxygen around our body. If we don’t have enough iron, our haemoglobin levels fall, and we can’t get sufficient oxygen to our cells. This can cause symptoms which include fatigue, dizziness, and shortness of breath. Serum iron is a very transient reading and can be influenced by the amount of iron-rich food in your diet in the days before your blood test. For this reason, iron is rarely looked at on its own, and is interpreted alongside other markers in an iron status test.
Total iron-binding capacity (TIBC) is a measure of the ability of your body to efficiently carry iron through the blood.
Transferrin is made in the liver and is the major protein in the blood which binds to iron and transports it round the body. This test measures how much this protein is ‘saturated’ by iron.
Ferritin is a protein which stores iron in your cells and tissues. Usually, the body incorporates iron into hemoglobin to be transported around the body, but when it has a surplus, it stores the remaining iron in ferritin for later use. Measuring ferritin levels gives us a good indication of the amount of iron stored in your body.
C-Reactive Protein (CRP) is an inflammation marker used to assess whether there is inflammation in the body – it does not identify where the inflammation is located. High Sensitivity CRP (CRP-hs) is a test used to detect low-level inflammation thought to damage blood vessels which can lead to a heart attack or stroke. When you suffer a serious injury or infection you experience significant inflammation around the site of injury – such as the swelling around a twisted ankle. Any injury like this will cause your CRP-hs to rise.
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