Ayurvedic Treatment for Anemia
What is Anemia
An individual suffering from Anemia means his/her blood is not able to carry the enough oxygen to the rest of body. The oxygen is carried by the hemoglobin, which is an iron-rich protein present in blood and gives red color to the blood. Furthermore, iron is required for the production of hemoglobin. Anemia has three main causes: blood loss, lack of red blood cell production, and high rates of red blood cell destruction.
What are the Symptoms of Anemia?
- Pale skin
- Weakness
- Fatigue
- Tiredness
- Chest pain
- Chest pain
- Headache
- Cold extremities
- Irregular heart beat
What is the Main Cause of Anemia?
Anemia takes place when your blood doesn’t have enough red blood cells, this may happen due to:-
- When your own body destroys red blood cells
- When body is not able to produce red blood cells or
- Bleeding takes place and there is huge loss of red blood cells
What are the Different Types of Anemia?
The most common types of anemia are:-
- Iron-deficiency Anemia: As discussed earlier, it happens due to deficiency of iron. The iron deficiency occurs due to blood loss or due to poor absorption of iron and poor diet. Gastric bypass surgery has also shown the anemia in many cases.
- Vitamin deficiency Anemia: Poor dietary intake, in which low levels of vitamin B12 (folate) is found causes anemia. There is another condition, known as Pernicious anemia, in which B12 is not observed in gastrointestinal tract, causes anemia.
- Hemolytic Anemia: In this condition red blood cells are broken in the bloodstream or in spleen, due to leaky heart valves, infections, autoimmune disorder, and congenital abnormalities.
- Sickle cell anemia: It is an inherited hemolytic anemia, in which red blood cells become sickle in shape leading to rigidity, clogging in circulation.
- Aplastic Anemia: It is a rare type of anemia, in which low level of blood cells are produced. Common causes are viral infections, autoimmune disease or exposure to toxic chemicals etc.
- Pregnancy related anemia: During pregnancy, blood is produced at larger level to support the growth of baby and body of mother. The anemic conditions arises due to the lack of iron or related nutrients in diet.
- There are other factors, which can induce the anemia, for example dysfunction in kidney, in which hormone ‘erythropoietin’ is not produced enough. The hormone erythropoietin initiates signal to bone marrow to produce new red blood cells. The chemotherapy is used for the treatment of cancer, but continued exposer of the body to this therapy has led impairment in the production new red blood cells, which causes anemia.
Who is on the Risk?
Persons, who may lead to anemia are having poor diet, intestinal disorder, chronic diseases and infections. The chronic medical conditions and pregnant or menstrual woman are mostly at the risk of anemia. The risk of anemia has been also observed in athletes such as jogging/basketball due to red blood cells breakdown.
Other conditions which could lead into anemia are:-
- Heavy periods
- Ulcers
- Colon polyps or colon ulcers
- Inherited diseases
- A diet deficient in iron, folic acids and vitamin B12
- Blood diseases such as sickle cell anemia, thalassemia or cancer
- Metabolic disorder
What are Tests and Diagnosis for Anemia?
Physical examination
- Doctor can check your eyes, eyelid, nails and skin color
- He can do abdominal examination to feel size of liver and spleen
- He can also check your heart beat
Complete blood count
Blood sample can be taken to study hb level in red blood cells, normal hb is 14 to 16 gms for men and 12 to 16 gms in females.
Tests can be performed to determine size and shape of red blood cell.