A Hematologist would be the specialist you see for any blood disorders such as Chronic Anemia.

In an otherwise healthy 19 yr. old female, Anemia is generally caused by a Vitamin Deficiency. This can be lack of Iron, lack of B12 or lack of Folates any of these combined with a heavy menstrual cycle can cause Anemia. Your daughter is doing the opposite of what a Dr. is going to tell her to do. Treatment for all of these types of Anemia is to get more iron and protein rich foods into her diet, i.e. red meat, eggs, liver, oysters, clams, milk and cheese, whole grains, nuts and seafood.

So she may have to decide what she wants more to be a vegetarian or to go in the army. Supplements don't work as well as the Iron or B12 derived from foods.

I hope y'all get this figured out.

I would also suggest to have her take birth control to regulate her periods to being less heavy. She can even skip the periods all together while on the pill to replenish her iron, otherwise I keep hearing how with heavy periods it is very difficult to get normal iron levels even with prescription iron and improvement in diet.

I don't think in the Army they will let her be a vegetarian. Maybe she can pick out the meat, but she won't be healthy. When i was in my 30's i was a vegan for a year and i got extremely weak and was in bed for 20 hrs a day. A friend bought me some protein pd and i drank it and in a wks time i was back to normal. I started to eat chicken and fish after that and i was fine. That was back then. I still eat chicken, but my diet is very poor...i don't eat good. Got money, just too lazy to cook good things. I am 70 now too. I never eat red meat, fish rarely, no fruits, no lettuce and my iron number is 6. Just started taking iron pills, but still feel extremely weak after one wk on them.

PS,,,,the protein powder back then i had to make a shake every single day sometimes 2x a day and after a wk i was fine., but i had to drink it every single day.