I had a phone call from the Doctor’s office saying I needed to come back in and speak to the doctor as soon as possible about my blood test results as one of them was very low. I managed to get an appointment for the 19th which was the earliest they could see me.
I’m anaemic!
My results are showing 80 and the normal range is 110 - 140! So I’m seriously anaemic. A person with anaemia doesn’t have enough haemoglobin in their blood or has fewer red blood cells than normal.
I found this really interesting as I’ve donated blood before on a regular basis and have never been anaemic. I also have a very healthy diet and eat lots good organic food, I’m not a vegetarian and eat red meat, I don’t have heavy periods and I’ve never seen blood in my stools.
Looking at the symptoms below I tick pretty much all of the boxes. I’m tired all the time, I have no energy, I’ve been struggling to sleep, I’m pale (unless I fake tan!) and I have suffered from leg cramps over the past couple of months.
Systems of Anaemia
Fatigue and loss of energy
Unusually rapid heartbeat, particularly with exercise
Shortness of breath and headache, particularly with exercise
Difficulty concentrating
Dizziness
Pale skin
Leg cramps
Insomnia
The doctor is aware of my ultra endurance challenge as he’s going to be signing off my medical form and doing my ECG in March. However, with these results this has raised a number of concerns about me doing the race in April. Before he makes a decision he’s asked me to have some more blood tests done to work out what type of anaemia I have. Once this is known he’ll be in a better position to know what to do to get me back to full health and to decide whether or not it will be possible for me to run.
There’s not a lot I can really do at the moment, I’m in limbo. The next step is getting a further blood test booked in, which is going to on the the 26th January and it will be another few days after that before I get the results.
At least things are moving forward with getting a diagnosis and hopefully after the next set of blood tests I’ll be in a better position to understand what my options are going to be with doing the MDS.