Debbie Brown Facebook ad: “Her Iron Was Low. Her Vitamin D Was Too. But Why?”

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I am going to say something that no woman over 35 with critically low iron, low vitamin D, and IBS wants to hear. And I don't give a fuck if it upsets you. My sister Diane had been taking iron pills, vitamin D3, and probiotics for months. She cut out gluten. Stopped eating dairy. Gave up onions, garlic, and half the foods she loved because her doctor told her to try a low-FODMAP diet. She did everything she was told. On October 19th, at 2 AM, I found her collapsed on the bathroom floor. She was 42 years old. The paramedics rushed her to the hospital. Her hemoglobin had fallen dangerously low. But we almost lost her. Another hour without help and she could have been in even worse trouble. She was so weak she couldn't stand on her own. Thank God she survived. The hospital bill came later. So did the follow-up appointments, the blood tests, and the questions nobody had managed to answer. Her favorite coffee mug is on the counter this morning. Her hand is around it right now. Fifteen months ago I thought I might never see that again. I need to tell you what happened to Diane. Because I have been a registered nurse for 22 years, and I keep seeing the same posts in women's health groups that my own sister was writing just months before she ended up in the hospital. "My ferritin is 7 and I'm exhausted. Anyone else?" "Vitamin D is 13 even though I take 5,000 IU. What am I missing?" "Does anyone else have IBS, low iron, and low vitamin D at the same time?" And it makes my stomach turn. If you are a woman over 35 and you've been told you have IBS, low ferritin, and low vitamin D, or someone you love has, please read this entire thing. I know it is long. I know you are scrolling. I know you have things to do. Fifteen months ago I would have given anything, everything, for someone to tell me what I am about to tell you. And I am telling you this as a nurse with over two decades in the field. I thought I knew enough about digestive problems and vitamin deficiencies. I'd seen patients with anemia. I understood iron infusions. I knew what ferritin measured. I had talked to hundreds of patients about medications, nutrition, and follow-up appointments. And I still didn't understand everything that was happening to my own sister. Diane went in for a routine physical on June 28th, 2024. She had been feeling tired for months. She was 42. She still tended her own garden, the roses she and our mother had planted years ago. She still went antiquing every Saturday with her friend Judy. She worked full-time, raised two kids, and rarely complained about anything. But her stomach had been giving her trouble. Bloating after meals. Cramping below her belly button. Some mornings she'd have diarrhea twice before leaving for work. Other days she wouldn't have a bowel movement for three days. Her doctor had called it IBS. Diane thought that explained the stomach problems. And honestly, so did I. Two days later her doctor called. Ferritin: 7 ng/mL. Vitamin D: 13 ng/mL. Hemoglobin: 10.2 g/dL. Her iron stores were badly depleted. She was anemic, and her vitamin D was deficient. "Diane, your iron is very low. Your vitamin D is low too. We need to work out why, and we need to get those levels up." Diane was quiet on the call. I was in her kitchen pretending not to listen. I had been staying with her a few nights each week since her husband Frank died three years earlier. She had that big house to herself whenever the kids were away, and I had a small apartment I barely used. "What does breakfast usually look like for you?" "Toast and coffee. Sometimes oatmeal if my stomach is behaving." "And dinner?" "Chicken and rice most nights. Sometimes pasta. I've stopped eating much else because everything makes my stomach hurt." "And in between?" "A banana. Crackers. Maybe some yogurt. Depends how bad my stomach is." Her doctor explained that Diane needed iron replacement and further investigation of the anemia. She recommended vitamin D replacement, reviewed possible reasons for the deficiencies, and referred her for gastrointestinal evaluation. Diane hung up the phone and sat at her kitchen table for forty minutes without saying anything. Then she stood up, walked to the pantry, and started taking everything out. I watched her pull out the whole-wheat bread. The boxes of pasta. The onions. The garlic. The milk. The yogurt. The apples she'd bought the day before. The canned beans. The foods she'd read could trigger IBS. The whole kitchen looked different in under an hour. I asked her what she was doing. "That's it. I'm done eating things that make me sick." And she was. For 103 days, she treated every meal like a test she was afraid to fail. No ordinary bread. No onions. No garlic. No milk. No beans. No apples. Not at her daughter's birthday dinner in August where everyone ordered pasta and Diane asked for plain grilled chicken and rice. Not at the Cubs game in September where our brother ordered hot dogs and Diane sat there eating crackers she'd brought from home. Not at her own birthday luncheon in October where her daughter had baked her favorite lemon layer cake, the one Diane used to make for every family birthday, and Diane had a cup of tea while everyone else ate. She stopped going to her Tuesday afternoon bridge club because she couldn't eat the cookies and homemade snacks the other ladies brought every week. She stopped going antiquing with Judy because she was scared she'd need a bathroom halfway through the drive. She stopped accepting dinner invitations because explaining the foods she couldn't eat had become more exhausting than staying home. She lost a piece of herself she had been carrying for years. And she did it anyway. Because she wanted to feel better. She was miserable the whole time. I want to be honest about that. She missed ordinary food. She missed being able to order something without reading every ingredient. She missed walking into a restaurant and choosing what sounded good instead of whatever seemed least likely to make her sick. She stood in the kitchen at nine at night looking at the pantry like she was trying to remember what normal people ate. She'd read labels three or four times before putting something in her cart. One afternoon she started crying because the gluten-free bread she'd bought had chicory root fiber in it, and she'd read that it could make bloating worse. She was irritated all the time. Not because she was an irritable person. Because she was hungry, exhausted, and scared of her own stomach. And she kept going. She took ferrous sulfate at first. It made her constipated and nauseous. She tried taking it every other day under her doctor's guidance. Then she switched to a different iron preparation because the first one upset her stomach so badly. She took vitamin D3 as prescribed. She bought Culturelle probiotics. Tried peppermint oil capsules. Started drinking more water. Kept a heating pad beside the couch for the cramps. She learned which foods were considered low-FODMAP. She learned to make rice noodles instead of pasta. She learned to check sauces for onion powder and garlic. She learned to eat plain chicken at family dinners without apologizing for it. She did everything she knew how to do. The follow-up labs came back on October 7th. Ferritin: 8. Vitamin D: 15. Hemoglobin: 9.4. Her ferritin had barely moved. Her vitamin D was still deficient. Her anemia had worsened. The doctor wanted to arrange additional evaluation, including looking for sources of blood loss or problems absorbing nutrients. An iron infusion was also discussed. Diane came home that night and sat at the kitchen table again. The same table she had sat at after the first call. She didn't say anything for a long time. Then she said, "Marie. I gave up everything. Everything. And I still feel like shit." I told her we needed to finish the testing. I told her there were other explanations. I reminded her the doctor had discussed an iron infusion. Because that is what a nurse says. Follow the tests. Find the cause. Treat the deficiency. Every word out of my mouth sounded reasonable. And still, I couldn't stand seeing her like that. She nodded. She kept eating the same five safe meals. Kept taking the iron she could tolerate. Kept taking her vitamin D. Five days later, five days, I woke up at 2 AM to a sound I had never heard come out of her in all the years we had been sisters. She was in the bathroom. I heard something hit the floor. Then I heard her trying to call my name. I ran down the hallway. She was sitting against the bathtub, unable to get up. Her face was white. Not a little pale. White. Her lips had almost no color. She'd stood up because her stomach was cramping again, gotten dizzy, and collapsed. I didn't ask questions. I called 911. By the time the paramedics arrived, she could barely keep her head up without feeling faint. The ER doctor, a young woman who couldn't have been 35, looked at Diane's bloodwork and asked how long she'd been feeling this weak. "Months," I said. She looked at Diane. "Your hemoglobin is dangerously low. We need to work out what's causing this and treat it now." The doctor just looked at me. And I remember being furious with myself for how long I'd watched her struggle. They rolled her down the hallway. I stayed beside the bed until a nurse told me where to wait. I sat in that plastic chair for three hours and forty minutes. I called Diane's daughter. I called our brother in Arizona. I called our other sister. I couldn't stop shaking. At 6:42 AM the doctor came into the waiting room. I stood up so fast I nearly fell over. "She's stable. We're treating the anemia and investigating why her levels have dropped. She's going to stay here while we work through the results." Stable. That word felt like the first good thing I'd heard all night. Diane spent several days in the hospital. She received treatment for the anemia and was evaluated for possible blood loss, nutritional problems, and gastrointestinal disease. She came home weak, frightened, and carrying a folder full of discharge instructions. That was when the second nightmare started. Because the doctors didn't just want Diane to come back for another iron test. They wanted to know why a 42-year-old woman had low iron, low vitamin D, weight loss, and months of digestive problems at the same time. Over the next few weeks, Diane had: A repeat complete blood count and iron panel. Testing for celiac disease. A review of menstrual blood loss with her gynecologist. A gastroenterology consultation. And further investigations guided by her symptoms and travel history. Some results were normal. Others raised more questions. Her gynecologist didn't find an obvious explanation for the degree of iron deficiency. Her celiac screening didn't establish celiac disease. Her gastroenterologist reviewed her previous IBS diagnosis, the bowel changes, and the unintended weight loss. And one part of the discussion stayed with me. IBS could explain some of Diane's cramping and bowel changes. But IBS by itself did not explain why her iron stores had become so depleted. Nor did it automatically explain her low vitamin D. Those things needed their own evaluation. Three findings. Low iron. Low vitamin D. And bowel symptoms she'd been calling IBS for months. Not proof of one disease. But enough to stop treating each problem as though the others didn't exist. Diane sat on the edge of her bed one night, holding the folders of test results in her lap. She looked up at me and said something I will never forget. "Marie. I've spent almost a year trying to fix my stomach. And now they're telling me we still don't know why my iron is so low." That was when I stopped thinking only like a nurse and started thinking like a scared sister who wasn't going to accept another six months of guessing. I started researching. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to. Because Diane had frightened me so badly that night in the bathroom. And because I realized that in all the conversations we'd had about IBS, food, iron supplements, and vitamin D, we had spent much more time discussing what to take than why the problems had appeared together. I started reading everything I could find at 2 AM when I couldn't sleep. Medical journals. Gastroenterology reviews. Research on iron-deficiency anemia. Vitamin D deficiency. Conditions that interfere with nutrient absorption. And intestinal infections. One thing kept coming up. The gut isn't just a place where food passes through. It's where the body absorbs iron and other nutrients. And when something interferes with that process, a person can have digestive symptoms and nutritional problems at the same time. But there was no single explanation for every woman with that combination. Celiac disease. Inflammatory bowel disease. Blood loss. Dietary restriction. Certain medications. And, in some circumstances, intestinal parasites. Some parasites can contribute to anemia or malabsorption. Hookworms, for example, can attach to the intestinal lining and feed on blood. Giardia can interfere with the absorption of nutrients, sometimes causing prolonged diarrhea and weight loss. But these are different organisms with different treatments. Low vitamin D isn't proof of either infection. And IBS symptoms don't tell you whether a parasite is present. I understood that much. What I still didn't understand was why so many people online were discussing the same group of herbs whenever parasites came up. Then I found a thread on a digestive health forum. The title caught my eye. "Has anyone else had IBS symptoms, really low ferritin, and a parasite found on testing?" I almost scrolled past. Something made me click. The post was from a woman who had spent months being treated for digestive symptoms while doctors investigated her recurring iron deficiency. She described her stool testing, the infection her doctors eventually identified, and the prescribed treatment she received. Underneath were hundreds of replies. Some from people with confirmed parasite infections. Others from people whose symptoms had turned out to be celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, or another cause entirely. And mixed in with those conversations were mentions of the traditional herbs people had used for intestinal worms. Wormwood. Black walnut. Cloves. Pumpkin seeds. Someone posted a name. Kumari. An older woman in a small Sri Lankan community in central New Jersey who kept a collection of traditional herbal recipes and books. People said she'd spent most of her life growing and studying medicinal plants. I looked at the clock. 2:39 AM. By 5:30 AM I was in my car. By noon I was in New Jersey. I had arranged to visit after finding a contact number through the community. The house was small, with a garden of unusual plants. Bushes I didn't recognize. Wooden boxes filled with herbs. A small tree by the front door. There was an older woman on the porch. Had to be pushing 80. Small. Thin. Dark hair pulled back with gray streaks running through it. She was sorting dried leaves in a large wooden bowl on her lap, her fingers moving so fast they blurred. No shaking hands. No hesitation. Just easy, steady work. I parked and walked up to the porch. "Excuse me. I don't want to bother you. Are you Kumari?" She looked up with sharp, clear eyes. "Yes." I stood there for a moment, trying to work out how to explain why I'd driven all that way. "My name is Marie. My sister is Diane. She's 42. She's been diagnosed with IBS, and her iron and vitamin D have been very low. She ended up in the hospital. I'm a nurse, and I'm trying to understand the traditional herbs people used for intestinal worms. Your name came up while I was researching." She set down the bowl. Looked at me for a long moment. "You came here for a reason," she said. "Come inside." Her kitchen smelled like cardamom and cloves and rising bread. She poured me a cup of tea without asking. Pulled out a chair. "Tell me about your sister." I told her everything. The IBS diagnosis. The ferritin of 7. The vitamin D of 13. The hemoglobin falling. The 103 days of cutting out bread, dairy, onions, and garlic. The iron pills that made her constipated. The probiotics. The hospital. The appointments. The tests we were still waiting for. She nodded through each part like she was checking items off a list she already had in her head. When I finished, she was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Your sister's doctors are trying to answer several questions. Don't turn them into one answer before you know what it is." I blinked. Not what I expected her to say. "An iron pill replaces iron. Vitamin D replaces vitamin D. A low-FODMAP diet may help certain bowel symptoms. But none of those things tells you why your sister developed her deficiencies in the first place." "I know her iron is low. Her vitamin D is low. Her stomach has been a mess for almost a year. That is not new to me. I'm a nurse, Kumari. I've been doing this for 22 years." She smiled. "Then you know more than most. But you also know that numbers and symptoms don't tell you everything about what is happening inside a body." She folded her hands on the table. "There are two things happening in your sister's case. The problems you can measure or feel. And the reason those problems developed. They are NOT the same thing." She held up two fingers, separated. "The iron pill works on replacing the iron. The vitamin D works on replacing the vitamin D. The diet may reduce the gas and cramping. But if there is an untreated disease, blood loss, or an infection underneath, those measures may not be enough." I stared at her. "You can see the ferritin number. You can measure vitamin D. You can describe diarrhea and bloating. But you still have to ask what's causing them." She leaned forward. "And here is the part many people miss. Low iron, low vitamin D, and stomach problems can appear together for more than one reason. Some people aren't absorbing nutrients properly. Some are losing blood. Some have changed their diets so much that they aren't getting enough nutrients. Others have inflammatory conditions. And a smaller group may have an intestinal infection that needs a particular test." She picked up three small cloves from the wooden bowl. Then set them on the table. "This one is the low iron. This one is the low vitamin D. This one is the stomach problems. Three findings. Sometimes separate. Sometimes connected." My chest tightened. Because I'd spent months watching Diane treat each one on its own. Iron pills. Vitamin D3. Probiotics. A food diary. And still, we were waiting for a clear explanation. I asked her about parasites. She looked me straight in the eye. "Some can cause serious problems. Hookworms can cause blood loss and iron-deficiency anemia. Giardia can cause diarrhea and poor absorption. Other parasites cause different symptoms, and many infections don't cause any symptoms at all." She paused. "But that does not mean your sister has one." I nodded. "And an ordinary IBS diagnosis doesn't prove a parasite was missed." "No," she said. "It doesn't." She reached across the table. "Now here is what you need to understand. If you're worried about a parasite, you have to find out which one you're looking for. Because pinworms aren't hookworms. Hookworms aren't Giardia. And ivermectin isn't the answer to every organism." She tapped the table once. "Some infections respond to ivermectin. Others need albendazole, mebendazole, praziquantel, metronidazole, or another treatment. It depends on the infection." My eyes started to water. Not because she'd found a magic answer. Because it was the first conversation in months where I could feel the questions getting clearer instead of more confusing. I thought about how desperate Diane had become. How many supplements she'd bought. How many foods she'd stopped eating. How much she'd wanted one thing that would explain everything. I couldn't speak for a moment. "Now hear me clearly," Kumari said. "I'm not telling you to throw away your sister's iron pills or stop her vitamin D. She needs to follow the medical plan for her deficiencies. And if she has a parasite, she needs the right treatment for that parasite. What I'm telling you is to keep asking why the numbers are low." I asked her why the old herbal remedies came up so often in conversations about parasites. She smiled. A small smile. "Because people were dealing with intestinal worms long before modern drugs existed." She stood. Walked to a shelf along the wall. Pulled down a dark glass jar. Inside were dried green-gray leaves. "Wormwood." She placed a second jar beside it. "Black walnut." Then a jar of whole cloves. And another filled with pumpkin seeds. "People used these plants in different traditional remedies. Some in teas. Some ground into powders. Some eaten or mixed with other ingredients. They had no modern laboratory tests. They used the plants they knew." I told her Diane had already seen wormwood capsules and black walnut tinctures advertised online. She must have read my face. "Don't confuse the history of a plant with proof that a supplement can cure a disease," she said. She picked up the wormwood. "Wormwood contains compounds researchers have studied for their effects on parasites. But the type of extract, the dose, and the organism matter." She put it down. "Black walnut contains juglone. That compound can affect living cells in laboratory experiments. But a laboratory result doesn't prove that swallowing walnut hull capsules clears intestinal worms in a person." Then she picked up the pumpkin seeds. "Pumpkin seeds have been studied because some compounds may interfere with the movement of certain worms. The idea is that when a worm can't move or hold on normally, it may be easier for the intestine to carry it out." That was something I could understand. Not that pumpkin seeds magically washed the intestines clean. Not that the seeds automatically removed every worm. A specific question about what compounds in the seeds might do. She reached for the cloves. "Cloves contain eugenol. Some laboratory studies have examined clove compounds against certain parasites and their development." She set the jar down. "But the eggs of different parasites aren't all alike. And there isn't good human clinical evidence showing that taking these four herbs together destroys every egg inside the body." She looked at me. "Four ingredients. Four different sets of compounds. An interesting traditional combination. But not proof of a complete cure." I asked her if there was a special form. She nodded. "There are different preparations, and quality matters. But people selling herbal cleanses often make much stronger claims than the evidence supports. A softgel isn't automatically more effective than a tincture. And a formula with more ingredients isn't automatically better." She paused. "There is a company my niece in Boston told me about. They put wormwood, black walnut, pumpkin seed, and clove together with other botanicals in a softgel." She wrote the name on a piece of paper and handed it to me. Holior. I looked it up from her kitchen table before I left New Jersey. The ingredients were familiar. The format was more convenient than buying separate bitter tinctures or grinding the plants ourselves. But I wasn't going to use it to replace anything Diane's doctors had prescribed. I drove home that afternoon. Got in late. Diane was asleep in her recliner. I sat on the couch across from her and watched her breathe for a while before going to bed. We continued the medical follow-up. The testing was not a simple one-and-done process. Her doctors reviewed possible blood loss and reasons for poor iron absorption. They also looked at whether infection testing made sense based on her history. The results gave them information they hadn't had when Diane was first diagnosed with IBS. And that changed the conversation. It was no longer just about finding a probiotic that didn't make her bloated. Or choosing between ferrous sulfate and another iron supplement. It was about identifying what needed treatment and monitoring whether her body was recovering. Diane followed the treatment plan her doctors recommended. She continued her iron replacement and vitamin D under their guidance. Her doctors monitored her hemoglobin, ferritin, and symptoms. Recovery took time. Not three days. Not one magical week. Time. There were better mornings and bad ones. Days when she could eat a full breakfast. Days when her stomach still hurt. Days when she went for a walk and came home tired. And days when she started to recognize the feeling of having a little energy left at the end of the afternoon. One afternoon she sat at the kitchen table at 3 PM and read the paper without falling asleep. She looked up at me and said, "Marie. I haven't done that in months." Another week she went through an entire grocery trip without needing to sit down halfway through. She bought ordinary food again, slowly, with her doctor's and dietitian's help. She stopped treating every bite as an enemy. Her daughter came for dinner one Sunday. I saw her face when she walked in. She'd spent months watching her mother look pale and exhausted. That night she pulled me aside. "Aunt Marie. Mom looks more like Mom again." I couldn't say anything. I was thinking about the night in the bathroom. The paramedics. The white face. The way her hand felt cold in mine. And all the appointments we'd been through before she finally began to feel stronger. The improvement was gradual. Her follow-up bloodwork was reviewed by the doctors treating her. They adjusted her iron replacement based on her response. Her vitamin D was rechecked. And she continued gastrointestinal follow-up so that any remaining symptoms could be investigated instead of dismissed. The important thing was that we could see what was changing. And what still needed attention. Her doctor didn't claim that one supplement had cured every problem. She didn't tell Diane that IBS, low ferritin, and low vitamin D always come from parasites. She looked at the tests. The history. The treatments. And the way Diane was recovering. That's what we'd needed all along. We'd spent so much time trying to make the symptoms disappear that we were almost afraid to ask what had caused them. Now we were asking. And getting answers. Diane still takes her prescribed supplements as directed. She still follows up with her doctors. But she eats dinner with her family again. She goes to the store. She walks in her garden. She has coffee with Judy. And she doesn't spend every afternoon lying on the couch wondering whether she'll ever have her strength back. I am writing this because I still have my sister. And because I watched how frightening it can be when several medical problems show up together and no one has explained whether they're connected. For Diane, it was low ferritin, low vitamin D, and digestive symptoms. For another woman, the answer might be different. There isn't one cause that fits everyone. If you, your mother, your sister, your best friend, or any other woman you love is over 35 and has been told she has IBS while her iron and vitamin D remain very low, please listen to what I am telling you. And I am telling you this not just as Diane's sister. As a nurse who spent two decades working with patients and still found herself frightened and confused when her own family needed answers. An iron pill can replace iron. Vitamin D3 can replace vitamin D. A low-FODMAP diet can help some IBS symptoms. But those treatments alone don't establish why the deficiencies and digestive symptoms appeared together. Cutting bread doesn't diagnose an intestinal infection. Taking probiotics doesn't tell you whether you're losing blood. And repeatedly buying new supplements doesn't replace investigating severe anemia, weight loss, or persistent bowel changes. There are several conditions that can connect digestive symptoms and nutrient problems. Some are common. Others are less common. Intestinal parasite infections are among the possibilities in people with relevant symptoms or exposure histories. And they require the right tests. Not guesses. Ivermectin treats particular parasites. It's not a universal worm medicine. Albendazole, mebendazole, praziquantel, and other medicines have their own uses. And traditional herbs have a different evidence base from approved prescription treatments. Wormwood. Black walnut. Pumpkin seed. Clove. Plants that people used long before ivermectin was developed. Plants containing compounds researchers have investigated for possible effects on parasites. Holior brings them together with additional botanicals in one softgel formula for people interested in traditional herbal digestive supplements. Three softgels daily before breakfast, according to the product directions. The formula is convenient. You don't have to grind seeds or measure several different tinctures. But it hasn't been clinically established as a treatment that clears every stage of a human parasite infection. And it shouldn't replace the evaluation or treatment prescribed for confirmed parasites, severe anemia, or nutrient deficiencies. Diane was 42 when I found her on that bathroom floor. Our father died at 71. Our mother died at 68. Diane is still here. Her daughter still calls almost every day. She still has her garden. Her coffee mug is still on the kitchen counter. I want that for you. I want your sister, your mother, your best friend, or any other woman you love to be able to enjoy her life without spending every waking hour trying to work out why she feels so unwell. Please don't wait for an emergency to take critically low iron, unexplained weight loss, or persistent digestive symptoms seriously. https://holior.com/products/wormwood-cc ~ Marie Smith, fictional registered nurse and sister of Diane P.S. Diane's hospital visit frightened all of us. Her iron stores were severely depleted, and her anemia had worsened. That is something to take seriously, not something to self-treat indefinitely with whatever supplement has the most reviews. If your ferritin is very low, your hemoglobin is falling, or you're experiencing fainting and severe weakness, follow up promptly with a medical professional. You need to know why. P.P.S. I don't work for Holior. I don't get a penny from this fictional story. The reason I wanted to tell it is that I keep seeing women describe the same combination: very low ferritin, low vitamin D, and IBS symptoms. If this sounds like you, don't assume parasites are the cause, but don't ignore the possibility of an underlying condition that hasn't been investigated. Share this with someone who keeps saying she's exhausted, her stomach hurts, and she still doesn't know why.

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Her Iron Was Low. Her Vitamin D Was Too. But Why?

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