Friday, October 10, 2008

Symptoms of Anemia

Anemia is a common blood disorder caused by a deficiency of red blood cells (RBCs) and is characterized by lack of vitality. It is estimated that around 7 percent of children in the United States experience anemia once by the age of 18 years. The most common cause of anemia in toddlers is iron deficiency. Iron is important in the production of hemoglobin, which is a protein that primarily transports oxygen from the lungs to the different parts of the body. Iron also aids different brain functions.

If you get tired very easily of constantly have low energy levels, it is quite possible that you could be suffering from anemia. If you have anemia, your body does not have enough hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying protein in the blood. There are many different kinds of anemia and each one has its own cause. There is Iron Deficiency Anemia, Vitamin Deficiency Anemia, Sickle Cell Anemia, Aplastic Anemia and Hemolytic Anemia to name a few. Many times no apparent reason can be pin pointed for anemia but it quite prevalent in our society.

One problem with spotting the symptoms of anemia is that often they are mistaken for the symptoms of other conditions. For example people who suffer from arthritis may also show signs of irritability and suffer from headaches. These symptoms are usually dismissed as being due to arthritis pain or the side-effects of medication, yet irritability and headaches are two symptoms of iron deficiency anemia. Yet the treatment of anemia with the right amount of iron can reduce the dizziness, palpitations, nervousness, headaches and depression associated with the disease.

The symptoms of anemia include tiredness, headaches, and generally feeling irritable. These symptoms can be severe, but are sometimes overlooked by doctors who assume the symptoms are due to other existing conditions, or the after effects of medication. This means a person’s anemia could go undiagnosed and without treatment, and so the tiredness, headaches and irritation remain, getting worse with time. Anyone with unexplained anemia should have the cause determined by a qualified doctor.

Anemia goes undetected in many people, and symptoms can be vague. Most commonly, people with anemia report a feeling of weakness or fatigue, general malaise and sometimes a poor concentration. People with more severe anemia often report dyspnea (shortness of breath) on exertion. Very severe anemia prompts the body to compensate by increasing cardiac output, leading to palpitations and sweatiness, and to heart failure . Other useful signs are cheilosis and koilonychias.

In addition, nutrients, hormones, electrolytes, and waste products to and from every cell in the body are also transported by blood. If this carefully regulated system was to breakdown or suffer an imbalance, anything from fatigue, cerebral hemorrhage, and death can occur. Maintaining rich healthy blood is of vital importance to ones survival, and can be achieved by eating whole, pure healthy foods, drinking pure water, and breathing pure air.

New born infants have higher haemoglobin levels and therefore, 15% is taken as the lower limit at birth, whereas at 3 months, the lower limit is taken as 9.5%. Although haemoglobin value is employed as the only parameter for determining whether or not anemia is present, the red cell counts, haematocrit(PCV) and absolute values (MCV, MCH and MCHC) provide alternate means of assessing anemia.



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