If you have anemia, your body does not get enough oxygen-rich blood. The lack of oxygen can make you feel tired or weak. You may also have shortness of breath, dizziness, headaches, or an irregular heartbeat.
You may have no symptoms if the anemia is mild or if the problem develops slowly. Symptoms that may occur first include: Feeling weak or tired more often than usual, or with exercise. Headaches.
Red blood cells use haemoglobin to carry oxygen around your body. If you have anaemia, the tissues and organs in your body might not get enough oxygen. Anaemia symptoms can leave you feeling tired, weak and short of breath.
Fatigue. Tiring easily, and waking up tired even after a good night's sleep, are common and potentially serious symptoms of anemia. This is due to reduced and compromised red blood cells that naturally cannot carry the required levels of oxygen to the organs – which, in turn, cannot function efficiently.
Your gums and the base of your nails may be especially pale. Chest pain. Without enough oxygen-rich red blood cells, your heart has to work much harder to keep your body supplied with the nutrients it requires. You may feel pain and tightness in your chest when your heart muscle is not getting the oxygen it needs.
Severe anemia may cause painful lower leg cramps during exercise, shortness of breath, and chest pain, especially if people already have impaired blood circulation in the legs or certain types of lung or heart disease. Some symptoms may also give clues to the cause of the anemia.
Anemia has three main causes: blood loss, lack of red blood cell production, and high rates of red blood cell destruction. Conditions that may lead to anemia include: Heavy periods.
You may also find that low iron causes weight gain. There are a couple of reasons for this; firstly, your energy levels are low and so your exercise levels reduce; secondly, iron is essential for thyroid function, and an underactive thyroid will lead to weight gain.
As the anemia gets worse, symptoms may include: Brittle nails. Blue color to the whites of the eye. Desire to eat ice or other non-food things (pica)
Foods to avoid
milk and some dairy products. foods that contain tannins, such as grapes, corn, and sorghum. foods that contain phytates or phytic acid, such as brown rice and whole-grain wheat products. foods that contain oxalic acid, such as peanuts, parsley, and chocolate.
Mild: Hemoglobin 10.0 g/dL to lower limit of normal. Moderate: Hemoglobin 8.0 to 10.0 g/dL. Severe: Hemoglobin 6.5 to 7.9 g/dL[1] Life-threatening: Hemoglobin less than 6.5 g/dL.
The last stage is iron deficiency anemia. It is characterized by a low hemoglobin concentration with small (microcytic), pale (hypochromic) RBCs. Symptoms include fatigue upon exertion, weakness, headaches, apathy, pallor, poor resistance to cold temperatures, low physical work capacity, and poor immune function.
Several treatments can be used to treat anemia. Iron supplements, also called iron pills or oral iron, help increase the iron in your body. This is the most common treatment for iron-deficiency anemia. It often takes three to six months to restore your iron levels.
Craving and chewing ice (pagophagia) is often associated with iron deficiency, with or without anemia, although the reason is unclear. At least one study indicates that ice chewing might increase alertness in people with iron deficiency anemia.
One of the main ways iron deficiency depletes energy is by affecting the thyroid gland. Your thyroid governs your body's metabolic processes, so when it isn't working properly, your metabolism rate falls, severely hampering weight loss efforts.
Anemia strains all the organs and makes it much harder to burn fat. On the other hand, both unwelcome weight loss and the inability to put on weight can be symptoms of anemia. Iron deficiency anemia can impact your immune system, making you more prone to disease and infection.
The most common cause of anemia worldwide is iron deficiency. Iron is needed to form hemoglobin, part of red blood cells that carry oxygen and remove carbon dioxide (a waste product) from the body. Iron is mostly stored in the body in the hemoglobin.
People who do not get enough iron or certain vitamins and people who take certain medicines or treatments are also at a higher risk. Anemia may also be a sign of a more serious condition, such as bleeding in your stomach, inflammation from an infection, kidney disease, cancer, or autoimmune diseases.
2. Feeling cold. Cold hands and feet can be a result of iron deficiency anemia. People with anemia have poor blood circulation throughout their bodies because they don't have enough red blood cells to provide oxygen to their tissue.
There is no evidence that low iron causes blurred vision. However, low iron can cause retinal changes leading to anemic retinopathy. Eye symptoms of low iron can include a pale coloring of the inside of the lower eyelids.
Anemia can cause thirst. When you have anemia your body struggles to produce enough healthy red blood cells [2]. A variety of different things can cause anemia such as a poor diet or another disease. When you have serious signs of anemia, it can make you feel thirsty, dizzy, tired, and weak.
It is not uncommon for an iron deficiency to present alongside uncomfortable gut symptoms like gas and bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and abdominal pain.