Iron Infusion
Jan. 19th, 2026 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI am VERY sore today but if I don't write this up I'll forget.
So! I got an iron infusion! It was not very exciting.
I went to the Clinipath head office thanks tomoonvoice's rec rather than getting it done at my GP. They were efficient and competent.
Before the appointment:
Got GP to do a referral, which sent them my info. She also gave me a prescription for the iron.
They rang me up to organise a time and send me even more info including about (non fasting) blood tests I had to do in advance, and make sure I was aware it would cost $230ish AUD.
I messed the timing due to holiday closures and had to reschedule, oops.
On the day:
The total process took about two hours.
I checked in at the desk, paid and gave them the iron. Somehow I ended up with two but only needed one, so I'm keeping the other for any future infusions.
I waited briefly before being ushered in to a comfy reclining chair in a room with about ten other people at various stages of being infused by a collection of cheerfully competent staff. I'm not sure if the non-drs were actually nurses but I'll call them that for simplicity.
I don't remember the exact order of events but:
A nurse took my details and explained things.
A doctor read my chart and discussed things with me in more detail, including the risk of staining, I didn't have any complexities but for some other patients she discussed any troubling test results etc.
A nurse set up the injection site. It took her two tries, which with my veins is spectacular.
It turned out my GP had gotten my date of birth slightly wrong (!) and they handled this pretty well. Also she'd written my gender as male and preferred name as Sean which they rolled with fine, idk if they actually treated me like a man (nor would I actually want them to, gotta talk to my doctor about that!) but they did call me Sean and weren't notably weird.
I was attached to the... infusing machine(?) via a long tube.
There are multiple steps to the infusion process: 5 minutes at low speed to check for any bad reactions, then 45 minutes at high speed, then 15 minutes sitting around afterwards to make extra sure there's no negative reactions. Every one of these stages is signalled via beeping that doesn't stop until a nurse comes to start the next step. The nurses were fairly busy so sometimes took a half a minute or so to come and deal with the beeping. The room was full of people at various stages of the process.
Which is to say: THERE WAS A LOT OF INTERMITTENT BEEPING.
Only the machines nearest me (mine and the patients on either side) were loud enough to be super distracting, and it wasn't at headache inducing levels, but it wasn't pleasant, and the lack of so much beeping is one advantage the GP office would have.
Anyway, asides from the beeping it was entirely painless, it was just boring to sit there with one arm on a pillow, using the other to keep myself busy on my phone.
It's hard to say what side effects I've had since I've had some unrelated stressful stuff going on (which I do not feel up for going into right now) but definitely some wooziness/feeling out of it and at one point the next day I had very weak arms. Maybe some indigestion though that could be a coincidence.
About a week later that's all settled and my arm looks totally normal. Its hard to say what positive effect it might have had since my health is so variable, but I do think I'm less brainfoggy than normal.
At some point I need to get a follow-up blood test to see how my levels are doing.
I probably have forgotten something but so it goes.
So! I got an iron infusion! It was not very exciting.
I went to the Clinipath head office thanks to
moonvoice's rec rather than getting it done at my GP. They were efficient and competent.Before the appointment:
Got GP to do a referral, which sent them my info. She also gave me a prescription for the iron.
They rang me up to organise a time and send me even more info including about (non fasting) blood tests I had to do in advance, and make sure I was aware it would cost $230ish AUD.
I messed the timing due to holiday closures and had to reschedule, oops.
On the day:
The total process took about two hours.
I checked in at the desk, paid and gave them the iron. Somehow I ended up with two but only needed one, so I'm keeping the other for any future infusions.
I waited briefly before being ushered in to a comfy reclining chair in a room with about ten other people at various stages of being infused by a collection of cheerfully competent staff. I'm not sure if the non-drs were actually nurses but I'll call them that for simplicity.
I don't remember the exact order of events but:
A nurse took my details and explained things.
A doctor read my chart and discussed things with me in more detail, including the risk of staining, I didn't have any complexities but for some other patients she discussed any troubling test results etc.
A nurse set up the injection site. It took her two tries, which with my veins is spectacular.
It turned out my GP had gotten my date of birth slightly wrong (!) and they handled this pretty well. Also she'd written my gender as male and preferred name as Sean which they rolled with fine, idk if they actually treated me like a man (nor would I actually want them to, gotta talk to my doctor about that!) but they did call me Sean and weren't notably weird.
I was attached to the... infusing machine(?) via a long tube.
There are multiple steps to the infusion process: 5 minutes at low speed to check for any bad reactions, then 45 minutes at high speed, then 15 minutes sitting around afterwards to make extra sure there's no negative reactions. Every one of these stages is signalled via beeping that doesn't stop until a nurse comes to start the next step. The nurses were fairly busy so sometimes took a half a minute or so to come and deal with the beeping. The room was full of people at various stages of the process.
Which is to say: THERE WAS A LOT OF INTERMITTENT BEEPING.
Only the machines nearest me (mine and the patients on either side) were loud enough to be super distracting, and it wasn't at headache inducing levels, but it wasn't pleasant, and the lack of so much beeping is one advantage the GP office would have.
Anyway, asides from the beeping it was entirely painless, it was just boring to sit there with one arm on a pillow, using the other to keep myself busy on my phone.
It's hard to say what side effects I've had since I've had some unrelated stressful stuff going on (which I do not feel up for going into right now) but definitely some wooziness/feeling out of it and at one point the next day I had very weak arms. Maybe some indigestion though that could be a coincidence.
About a week later that's all settled and my arm looks totally normal. Its hard to say what positive effect it might have had since my health is so variable, but I do think I'm less brainfoggy than normal.
At some point I need to get a follow-up blood test to see how my levels are doing.
I probably have forgotten something but so it goes.
