Naomi’s story

I always thought of myself as a pretty healthy person, but I was curious to find out if there were things that I could improve to optimise my overall health. You never know what’s going on inside you — until you have a look with a blood test!

I eat a healthy vegetarian diet and I’m fairly fit, but I was feeling a little more tired than normal. I wondered if there could be a reason for it. One of my friends who’s a vegan chef mentioned that they use Thriva to track their health and to see how their body’s adapting to their diet.

I decided to try Thriva as well to see if something was going on. I was really excited to get my results because I’d never done anything like this before!

I was sure I’d been suffering from coronavirus just before I took my first test. I was feeling pretty awful and thought it’d be the perfect time to see how my body was recovering.

To my surprise, when my Thriva results came through, there was a notice for me to urgently visit my GP. My ferritin result was very high at 1000 ug/L — it should ideally be at 50 ug/L. 

My GP did another test to verify my ferritin levels, and the results came back the same. High ferritin levels can be an immune response, so the doctors ran a number of tests to check for infections (including COVID-19). All came back negative. 

Haemochromatosis is a condition where too much iron builds up in your body. Too much iron can lead to illnesses like liver disease, heart problems, and diabetes.

It usually builds up very slowly over a number of years. By the time hemochromatosis is usually diagnosed, a person is too old to have large amounts of blood removed to remove the excess iron — which is the only cure. But thanks to Thriva, I was able to catch it earlier in my life! 

I’ve been visiting the hospital weekly since August when I first got diagnosed. Now my iron levels have stabilised, and I won’t have to keep going back so frequently. 

I couldn’t recommend Thriva enough to everyone — I’ve told everyone I know to use the service!