Chronic Anemia - Cured, My Story

Oh boy! Where do I begin ... I remember running down the tracks of my highschool's lap track field while bleeding heavily during my menstrual period week/s. The bleeding was so heavy that I had to change my pad several times during the school day. During my 'MC' times, I struggled terribly but my road to be travelled would be hell compared what I was to endure in the future. With plenty of school homework and activities, my mind soon forgot about those bloody times each month. It was not until my late 30's that I felt something was wrong was going on with my health. There were days were I would walk around in a daze, not having any thought in my mind, my thoughts just wondered as if my head was floating ... In the middle of this kind of brain fog, I would develop a tightness around my head as if a steel band was wrapped around my skull and tightening with each step I took. At the same time, I had this feeling in my head that felt like blood was draining from the top of my head and throughout my body. The 'chill', that terrible cold, bony feeling one gets when it's freezing outdoors and you have but only a T-shirt on. It was very strange, in the middle of Summer when some people felt it warm enough to be butt naked or in short sleeved shirts, I would feel cold, cold enough to wear a sweater. It was times like this that that made me feel different and alone. Winters were even worse. I could not wear enough clothing to keep me warm - two pairs of socks, sweat pants, sweat shirt, sweater vest, mittens and a toque while wrapped up in a thick comforter inside my own home. Dare I risk wandering out in the cold, winter day, I would be punished with freezing pain that shocked me to the bone. Why me, I would cry silently to the sky. Outings were few, trapped like an animal by my own intolerance to the cold weather outside. As the years past, my condition worsened and I develop what I called the starving condition where I had to eat every 2-3 hours or suffer light fainting feelings and ravenous hunger pangs. Each time, I felt link I was having a sugar low in my brain or something. I dare not wander to far away from home, going grocery shopping was far and in between. It's actually terrible to have to depend on others in order to run errands and buy food ... This situation went on for a few more years. Here's the funny part, throughout my condition, I visited both my family doctor and a gynaecologist ( not sure if I spelled that right ) but both said that I was healthy. I had many, many blood test done that came back with low blood levels but my doctor said the results looked okay. To my surprise, my doctor did not know to look at my Ferritin blood levels. But eventually she did after several years ... as it was under 5. When I looked this number up on the Internet, it was explained that I was deathly depleted of my blood iron store. For those who do not know what Ferritin level is then I will try to explain. When a person, in my case loses blood during our period, you lose so much that your body starts taking the 'stored' iron from you. If this level drop to a dangerously low level, you may feel faint, become unconscious/blackout, be breathless and your body may feel deathly cold. At that time, I was not told this by any doctor and since they said I was within the correct range and healthy, I just went on my way thinking nothing was wrong. Stupid me, I should have educated myself further because my doctor's lack of knowledge almost caused my death. I beg each young girl and women to always question your doctor if you do not understand something and also do you own internet research on your condition as no one knows your body better than you. As time progress, my symptoms of feeling faint and being breathless and cold internally took me to my local hospital several time in ambulances with sirens screaming all the way down the street. Finally, yes finally I was diagnosed after many years with Chronic severe anemia. This is how it went, during a menstrual cycle, I bled heavily for 40 whole days. In the middle of that, I visited my doctor, she told me that I was 'little' anemic and that it had nothing to do with my fainting spells and other symptoms. So as I reached my 40th day of my very heavy period, felt so bad that I couldn't think right, I had to call for an ambulance. At the hospital, the attending physician scolded me for taking so long to go to a hospital. He question why? The doctor said that I could have bled to death. My jaw dropped. How could this be? My own doctor told me that I was okay and I was only a little Anemic, remember??? Right away he put me on 2 bags of blood to be transfused. I was very scared as I thought that I was going to die right there in that cold hospital. In the middle of my first bag of blood, I started to feel awful cold, my arms and heart area especially, wished hospitals would kinda warm up the blood for you before they inject it into your veins. Between the time, the doctor warned that there may be a possibility of me catching a disease from another persons blood to the fact that some people develop allergic reactions to another's blood ( incapable as no two people's DNA is the same ), I was still freaking out. In the end, the saline and blood both made me feel very, very cold and sick, later I developed a kind of breathlessness for a couple of weeks. Later on I read on the net that most hospitals have certain components in blood removed before giving it to the patient thus it's blood which lacks oxygenation .... no use to me ... it was later on, some weeks later that I visited my doctor that she said she noticed that my Blood Ferritin levels were low ... YOU SAY WHAT???? That did it, if doctors are taught incorrectly how to reach ferritin levels then a patient would be dead by the time, they consider the levels deathly low. So people, I urge you to also do your own online research after being diagnosed with a condition in order to better educate yourself against doctors that may not know what they doing. If you have a story about Anemia, feel free to share it, below in the comments area. I hope no one has to go through what I went through, what's worse is it took almost 10 years for my doctors to even get a hint of what's wrong with my health. Well, people, good health to you all and never give up. 😊