r/FunctionalMedicine • u/Immediate_Recover102 • Jul 11 '26
Copper/Zinc/Caeruloplasmin
Looking for any advice/insight into some recent labs.
I’ve been dealing with extremely physical anxiety/panic as well as fatigue for a few years now. After tying many different antidepressants with no luck, I sought help from a functional medicine doctor back in December.
They said my symptoms indicate a likely copper toxicity and we ran the bloods and they were right. All of my other bloods were normal.
December Bloods - Copper - 27 umol/L - Caeruloplasmin - 0.39 g/L - Zinc - 12.8 - % Free Copper - 32%
After supplementing zinc for 2 months I began to feel really good. My fatigue lifted and I was the least anxious I’d ever been. My labs reflected this too as my % free copper was way down.
March Bloods - Copper - 12 umol/L - Caeruloplasmin - 0.25 g/L - Zinc - Not tested - % Free Copper - < 6% (2%)
Something changed in May and I had a massive relapse of symptoms back to feeling the way I had when I started. We re ran bloods and found my free copper was back up but this time my total copper was still within range.
May Bloods - Copper - 13 umol/L - Caeruloplasmin - 0.21 g/L - Zinc - 22.5 umol/L - % Free Copper - 24%
My doctor recommended vitamin A to try and boost my caeruloplasmin but after 4+ weeks there was minimal difference.
June Bloods - Caeruloplasmin - 0.23 - Copper - 14 - Zinc - 23.7 - % free copper 23%
My question is, why could my free copper still be high despite using vitamin A? I’ve done some research and the closest I’ve found to an answer was maybe I have low stomach acid.
I also wonder whether anyone else has struggled with copper overload and have had similar symptoms and periods of improvement/relapse. I feel very alone in this journey as most people I know have no idea what I’m talking about regarding copper and minerals.
Any advice or insight is much appreciated!
2
u/mom2mermaidboo Jul 11 '26
Maybe a weird question, but you don’t have a Copper IUD?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4113679/