Why Standard Testing Misses Mineral Imbalances In Kids | with Michele Grosvenor

You've been to the GP. You've done the bloods. And the results came back fine.

But your child still isn't sleeping. They're melting down in ways that feel completely out of proportion. Their skin is a constant battle — eczema that flares and fades but never really goes away. Their nose is always blocked, always congested, always something. And you know, in your gut, that something is off.

You're not imagining it. And you're not alone.

This is one of the most common things I hear from parents in my clinic, that the standard testing didn't give them answers. And I want to explain why that happens, and what I look at instead.

What Bloods Actually Show You

Standard blood tests are incredibly useful. But here's the thing — they give you a snapshot of what's circulating in the blood on that particular day. That's it. One moment in time, one fluid, one picture.

What they don't show you is what's happening inside your child's tissues, where nutrients are actually stored, used, and where deficiencies really take hold.

That's where Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis, or HTMA, comes in.

A small sample of hair, taken painlessly at home, gives us a three-month picture of what's been happening at the tissue level. Not just a single day. Three months of metabolic information about how your child's body has been absorbing, using, and potentially become deficient in the minerals it needs to function.

Minerals Don't Work In Isolation

This is the part I find most fascinating, and the part that often makes things click for parents.

Minerals are not independent. They work together, compete with each other, and can antagonise on another making them out of balance. Which means that one imbalance rarely stays contained. It has a ripple effect.

Let me walk you through something I see often in clinic.

Iron is one of the most common deficiencies I see in clinic and a big reason for that is that children, especially fussy eaters or those who aren't big protein eaters, often aren't getting enough through food to begin with. But low iron isn't just about tiredness. It plays a significant role in sleep regulation. So when parents tell me their child struggles to fall asleep, wakes frequently, or just never seems rested, low iron at the tissue level is always something I want to look at.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

Copper and zinc have a close relationship. When copper is elevated, which can happen for a number of reasons, it antagonises zinc. It's essential for immune function and skin health, so when low in children it can show up as recurring infections, poor wound healing, and persistent skin conditions like eczema. It's also deeply involved in mood regulation, cognition and behaviour.

But elevated copper doesn't stop there. It can also antagonise with iron, meaning a child who is already low in iron can be made even more deficient by high copper. Sleep, immunity, skin and behaviour, all connected through two minerals and the way they interact.

Manganese is another one I see frequently out of range, and it's rarely talked about. Low manganese in children can present as brain fog, difficulty concentrating, fatigue and a kind of physical clumsiness that often gets dismissed as just part of who they are. Manganese also works with chromium to help regulate blood sugar and when blood sugar isn't stable, children struggle to regulate their emotions. That meltdown that seems to come out of nowhere - blood sugar dysregulation is often part of the story. Manganese also shares the same transport system as iron, so your child's manganese absorption is strongly associated with their iron status.

These threads are connected. And HTMA lets us see the whole picture at once.

What About Diet? Can't We Just Fix It With Food?

Sometimes, yes and food always matters. But here's something important to understand, even a child who is eating reasonably well can still be significantly depleted.

Heavy metals can accumulate in the body's tissues and actively block the absorption and render the function of the minerals your child needs most. We're talking about metals like mercury, lead, aluminium, cadmium, and arsenic, things children are exposed to more than most people realise, through environment, food, and everyday skin and househeld products.

Standard testing doesn't screen for these. HTMA does.

This is often the missing piece for families who have already made significant dietary changes and still aren't seeing the results they hoped for. It's not that what they're doing isn't working, it's that there's something underneath that needs to be addressed.

We'll be going deeper on heavy metals and what to do about them in an upcoming blog

What Does Hair Mineral Testing Involve?

This is one of my favourite parts to tell parents, because it's so simple, especially for children who don't love needles.

A small sample of hair is collected at home, close to the scalp at the back of the head. Then it's sent directly to the lab. No clinic visit required, no blood draw, no stress for your child or you.

The results give us a detailed report about which minerals are too low or too high, how they're interacting, and whether heavy metals are present. From there, we can build a clear, targeted plan that's specific to your child.

Not generic, no guessing, just based on what's actually happening in their body.

If You've Been Looking For Answers

If you've been in that place, doing all the right things, following all the advice, and still not seeing your child thrive, I want you to know that there is often more information available than the standard tests reveal.

HTMA is one of the most valuable tools I use in clinic regularly because it shows us the layers that often gets missed.

If you'd like to know more about how this works or whether it might be right for your child, I'd love to hear from you.

Love Michele

If your child is dealing with ongoing tummy troubles, catching everything that is going around or even having behavioural issues, it may be time to consider another approach. Book a consultation with Michele who will start exploring a naturopathic approach and functional testing options with you.

Michele has years of experience supporting families and taking a personalised approach to improve your child(rens) health.