At age forty and recently married for the first time, I was rapidly losing my hair, experiencing heart palpitations, tinnitus, and joint pain, and becoming too weak to do normal tasks. Bloodwork showed elevated liver enzymes and iron. I was then diagnosed with severe hemochromatosis (iron overload disease), with a ferritin level (stored iron) that reached 3,857 units at its peak, or almost forty times the norm. After referring myself to a liver specialist, I learned that cirrhosis had already set in.