Part 1: How Stress, Hormones, and Survival Showed Up in My Bloodwork
For a long time, I thought I was just tired, emotional exhaustion, uncertainty, and chronic lack of sleep. Like many women, I kept pushing through it, assuming my body would eventually catch up.
Instead, my body started breaking down in ways I could no longer ignore.
My menstrual cycle changed dramatically. What should have been a normal period turned into weeks of heavy bleeding. I became weak, lightheaded, and exhausted. Some days I felt like I could faint just standing up too quickly. I developed constant headaches, brain fog, and a level of fatigue that sleep alone could not fix.
That was the moment I finally went to the doctor.
After my bloodwork and ultrasound came back, I sat staring at my MyChart results trying to decode a language most patients are never taught to understand: Hemoglobin. MCV. Ferritin. A1C. Cholesterol. Triglycerides. Vitamin D.
Some numbers were marked “high.”Others were marked “low.”
But what did those numbers actually mean?
The ultrasound revealed fibroids causing distortion of the uterine lining, helping explain the prolonged heavy bleeding. My labs also showed mild anemia, elevated blood sugar, high cholesterol, low vitamin D, and signs of metabolic stress.
For the first time, I stopped seeing my symptoms as random problems happening separately. I began to see them as connected signals from a body under pressure.
The Anemia Connection
My hemoglobin came back low at 10.8, along with a low MCV of 75. (Mean Corpuscular Volume) it helps to imagine your bone marrow as a high-volume factory, and your red blood cells as delivery trucks designed to carry oxygen throughout your body.
MCV doesn't count how many trucks you have, it measures the physical size of each truck.
When your MCV is low, the factory is turning out miniature delivery trucks (microcytic cells).
To build a normal-sized red blood cell, your body needs a strict recipe, with iron being the core ingredient to build hemoglobin. If the factory runs low on iron, it cannot fill the cells properly. To compensate, the body packs what little hemoglobin it has into smaller, shrunken packages.
Because these trucks are too small, they cannot hold enough oxygen, which is why iron deficiency makes you feel exhausted, cold, and weak.
My low results suggested microcytic anemia, which commonly happens when the body loses blood over time.
In my case, the prolonged bleeding likely played a major role.
That explained why I had been:
- dizzy,
- weak,
- short of breath,
- exhausted,
- and struggling to concentrate.
I learned that even “mild” anemia can make daily life feel overwhelming when your body is trying to recover from ongoing blood loss.
The Blood Sugar Wake-Up Call
Then came the numbers that truly shocked me:
- Glucose: 126
- A1C: 6.9%
- Glucose: 126 mg/dL
This is your fasting blood sugar. It measures the amount of glucose circulating in your bloodstream at the moment your blood was drawn (assuming you had not eaten for at least 8 hours).
The Scale: Normal: Under 100 mg/dL
Prediabetes: 100–125 mg/dL
Diabetes: 126 mg/dL or higher
My result of 126 mg/dL sits at the diagnostic threshold for diabetes. It suggests that even after fasting overnight, my body is having difficulty effectively regulating glucose levels.
- A1C: 6.9%
While fasting glucose can fluctuate based on stress, sleep, illness, or recent eating patterns, the A1C (Hemoglobin A1C) reflects your estimated average blood sugar over approximately the past 2–3 months.
The Scale: Normal: Below 5.7%
Pre-diabetes: 5.7%–6.4%
Diabetes: 6.5% or higher
An A1C of 6.9% corresponds to an estimated average blood glucose of about 151 mg/dL over the past several months. Because it is above the 6.5% diagnostic cutoff, it supports the finding that my blood sugar has been consistently elevated rather than being caused by a single stressful day or temporary spike.
Another important thing to discuss during the doctor’s visit is whether my recent anemia and prolonged bleeding may have slightly affected my A1C results due to changes in red blood cell turnover.
Because the A1C test measures glucose attached to red blood cells over their lifespan, anything that changes how long those cells live can slightly affect the result.
With heavy bleeding or anemia, the result can sometimes be skewed either higher or lower depending on the situation:
- Iron-deficiency anemia can sometimes cause the A1C to read falsely higher.
- Recent major blood loss or rapid turnover of red blood cells can sometimes lower the A1C because newer red blood cells have had less time to accumulate glucose.
What Is Happening Inside the Body?
At this stage, the body is commonly experiencing insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that helps move glucose from the bloodstream into the body’s cells for energy. With insulin resistance, the cells do not respond efficiently to insulin, causing glucose to remain in the bloodstream longer than it should. Over time, the pancreas may work harder to compensate by producing more insulin.
The Encouraging Part
An A1C of 6.9% is considered an early or mild stage of Type 2 diabetes. Because it is still relatively close to the diagnostic threshold, many people are able to significantly improve their blood sugar levels through targeted dietary changes, regular physical activity, weight management, stress reduction, improved sleep, and sometimes supportive medication if needed.
Those results placed me in the diabetic range.
At first, I felt fear. But the deeper I researched, the more I realized that stress, poor sleep, hormonal shifts, emotional overload, inconsistent eating, and chronic survival mode can all affect blood sugar regulation.
My body had been living in emergency mode for a long time.
That realization changed how I viewed health entirely. I stopped seeing wellness as punishment or restriction and started seeing it as support.
Cholesterol, Stress, and Survival
My cholesterol and triglycerides were also significantly elevated, dealing with instability, the numbers reflected a body under strain.
I began understanding that health is rarely just one thing. It is sleep. Stress. Hormones. Food. Safety. Consistency. Rest. Stability.
"Trauma and stress leave a permanent physical imprint."
Learning to Listen
One of the most important things I learned during this experience was this:
My body was not betraying me. It was trying to warn me.
The headaches, fatigue, dizziness, bleeding, and abnormal labs were not signs of weakness. They were signals asking me to slow down, pay attention, and start rebuilding my health from the inside out.
My story is not about fear.
It is about understanding your body, learning how to read your labs, asking better questions, and recognizing that many women are silently struggling with symptoms they have normalized for far too long.
Sometimes healing begins the moment you finally understand what your body has been trying to say.
