Laurie,
If your hubby has hereditary hemochromatosis, many of his symptoms sound like that is what is going on. It can be a wicked disease and can be deadly for some, are you aware of that? It can cause joint pain, arthritis, diabetes, cirrohsis of the liver, heart problems the list goes on. People with hemochromatosis have high amounts of iron in their blood and sometimes too much stays in the liver and can not be filtered out thru the liver. It can go to other internal organs and destroy the organs, some people have had to have liver transplants because of the high iron destroying their livers. This disease never goes away once you have it, you have it and there is no cure for it either. Its a disease that can be mild to severe.
My daughter has this disease and was dxd with it in her middle twenties. Her iron count was off the scale. She went to planned parenthood for BC pills for years and they always asked her if she ate nails every day for breakfast because of the iron count. No one ever told her it was not normal to have a high iron count. It was not until she actually went under the care of a general practioner that this all came full circle. She got a phone call to come see the dr to discuss her lab work done on a physical. Her PCP got scared due to the extremely high iron count-she made a call with my daughter sitting there to a gastro and she explained the abnormal labs and she was seen the following day and three days later having a liver biopsy. They call it the Iron Mans Disease, more common in men than women. My daughter now has diabetes, early scarring of the liver, arthritis and a lot of joint pain, she also has a skin condition that is a spin off from the disease. She also has some other problems from it and I cannot remember them because right now I am not feeling well at all, but I needed to post this for you. Her cholesterol and tryglcerides were very high too. She cannot take any vitamins that have iron and has to avoid food high in iron and she does not eat any red meat. She goes every other month and has a unit of blood taken out to help get her numbers down. Her gastro wants her there every month but she gets sick after the blood draws and will not do it every month. Now, she can tell by her body signals when the iron count is getting high. She really has to watch her diet with this disease. She has to have liver biopsys done to monitor the liver. She is under the care of a gastroenterologist for the disease and she also sees a dermatologist for the skin problem all related. Her gastro gave her a name of a website in the very beginning that he recommended. He said it was the best one out there because too many have incorrect info being given out. I will get the name for you from her.
A regular blood test cannot dx hemochromatosis, there is a special test done for it. In addition, there is a test you need to have done to see if you have the disease or if you are a carrier. You can be a carrier and not have the disease, but it can be passed onto your children. I had to have dna testing for the disease, her dad and her brother, she has no children. I am a carrier but I do not have the disease. As it turned out from the dna testing her dad and I both are carriers, neither of us have the disease, we are just carriers and we passed the disease onto her. If you test positive on the dna testing then your children need to be tested too to see if they have the disease or if they will be carriers.
She also has to avoid alcohol because the disease involves the liver. So if your hubby drinks he needs to stop. I am not trying to scare you by no means. But, if this is the disease your hubby has you both need to get educated about it. He also needs to get in to his PCP and get ref to a gastro to see if its the disease kicked up that is causing his problems.
Susie