Any recommendations for vegan iron medication?
Hi! I've been vegan for a year or so and before I was vegetarian for seven, but the One Thing I have not managed to replace is my iron medication. For context, I am severely anemic chronically: the pills I take (daily) contain five times the normal daily intake of iron, because my body just doesn't process the thing. If I don't take them I after a while i get cold and exhausted, faint often, and eventually my organs start giving up.
I am in a country that has free healthcare, so I get my pills provided. However, they are not vegan or even vegetarian. They are capsules, so they contain gelatin in the casing (I'm pretty sure, the box won't specify and no one has provided clarification when asked) and the iron itself I'm pretty sure comes from egg in some way (I'm not a scientist). My hematologist has not been able to prescribe a vegan version because he is adamant there is no vegan version (not really true, I used to take a vegan liquid medication but then my condition got worse and my dosage got upped severely); he also says I can't get to the dose needed with vegan-derived pills and that "medicine has nothing to do with veganism".
Anyway, does anyone know if there are any alternatives I could bring up with him? I have been looking for months but I haven't found any. I feel very guilty about participating in the consumption of animal products, and I have had guilt spirals where I don't take my meds and then I get really sick.