There is much you can do to make sure your life is as normal and healthy as possible.

• Check-ups: Have the amount of iron in your blood checked regularly.
• Phlebotomy: Make sure to get phlebotomies when you need them.
• Iron pills: Don’t take iron pills, supplements, or multivitamin supplements that have iron in them. Eating foods that contain iron is fine.
• Vitamin C: Vitamin C increases the amount of iron your body absorbs. Avoid taking pills with more than 500 mg of vitamin C per day. Eating foods with vitamin C (such as oranges) is fine.
• Food: Don’t eat raw fish or raw shellfish. Cooking destroys germs harmful to people with hemochromatosis. People with hemochromatosis are at greater risk for bacteremia, a bacterial infection of the blood stream.
• Alcohol: If you choose to drink alcohol, drink very little. Women should have no more than one drink a day. Men should have no more than two drinks a day. However, if you have liver damage, do not drink any alcohol.
• Exercise: You can exercise as much as you want. The CDC and the American College of Sports Medicine offers the following physical activity recommendations:
  • Adults should engage in moderate-intensity physical activities (indicated by some increase in breathing or heart rate) for at least 30 minutes on most preferably all days of the week.

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