NurseKim_ATL said:

Iron studies on micronutrients — important especially for women: Marker Baseline Month 6 After Supplementation Ferritin 66 19 56 Iron 96 61 79 TIBC…

Vitamin and mineral labs to check while on micronutrients — my doctor orders these quarterly:

• B12: Can drop due to reduced GI absorption. Mine went from 650 to 380 — now supplementing.
• Iron/Ferritin: Reduced food intake = reduced iron. Ferritin dropped from 55 to 22. Supplementing.
• Vitamin D: Was already low (22 ng/mL), now taking 5000 IU daily.
• Folate: Stable, no issues.
• Zinc: Slightly low, added a multivitamin with zinc.

Nutritional deficiencies are a real risk when you're eating significantly less. Don't skip your labs!

One concrete data point for the thread. Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look. It is a small discipline and it changes what you notice.

JessicaH_TX said:

Vitamin and mineral labs to check while on micronutrients — my doctor orders these quarterly: B12: Can drop due to reduced GI absorption.

Coming at JessicaH_TX’s question from a different direction. The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person. Both are real; they answer different questions and get quoted as if they were the same one.

One thing that is still open after PedsEndoPhilly’s answer:

Did your prescriber agree with that reading, and if not what was their objection?

Closing the loop on my own question.

For the archive: it took about six weeks rather than the two I expected, and the difference between those two numbers was the whole of my problem.