TREATMENT

Hi again everyone ✋✋✋✋✋✋✋ In today's post, I will be talking about the treatment of anaemia. Well theres so many treatments that doctors would do on you when you are diagnosed with anemia. I'm gonna explain the treatments based on the types of anaemia ok? (so that you guys wont get confused)

1. Iron deficiency anaemia

OK guess the main treatment for IRON deficiency anaemia. (clue: IRON). Haha easy right? Since your body is lacking of iron.. Yeah, the doctor will recommend you to consume more iron supplements. Malaysian like to consume Shaklee to get their irons. But if you don't know where to get these iron supplements, fret not, just ask your doctor or go to the nearest pharmacy. They will recommend the best iron supplement for you. Next, your doctor will also recommend you to increase iron in your diet. Wondering what food has a lot of iron? Here you go 👇👇👇

2. Thalessemia

Recap: Thalessemia is a disease where your body can't make haemoglobins. These haemoglobins are important in order for your body to make new red blood cells. Now, because of this, your body is lacking of blood. OK so where can you get blood to replace this problem? YES! Blood from other people by blood transfusion. 

Iron chelatin therapy is used to remove excess iron in your body. Why excess iron? This is because after you do blood transfusion, red blood cells will die leaving excess iron in your body. These excess iron can damge your heart, liver and other organs. To prevent this damage, iron chelatin therapy is used.

Patients are also treated with folic acid supplement. Folic acid is a B vitamin that helps build healthy red blood cells.

Other treatments are stem cell and bone marrow transplant. This transplant is done to replace the faulty stem cells (cells in the bone marrow) and also faulty bone marrow with a healthy one from another person. This allows people with thalessemia to produce their own red blood cells, FINALLY. 

3. Aplastic anaemia

The treatment for aplastic anaemia is kinda similar with thalessemia. First, blood transfusion and it is done to relieve the anaemia symptoms and control bleeding. 

Stem cells transplant are done to remove those disfunctional stems cells in the bone marrow. How its done? These cells are injected into your veind using IV and these cells will travel to the bone marrow and start making new red blood cells.

The doctor will also recommend these medicines that will

• Stimulate your bone marrow - erythropoietin & colony stimulating factor
• Surpress your immune system - cyclosporine & methylprednisolone
• Prevent and treat infections - antibiotics

4. Haemolytic anaemia

Haemolytic anaemia=red blood cell destruction before its normal life span.

The goals for haemolytic anaemia are to reduce/stop red blood cell destruction, increase the red blood cell count to an acceptable level and also treating the underlying cause (the disease that causes a person to have haemolytic anaemia. 

To treat severe haemolytic anaemia, blood transfusion is done. REMEMBER☝ the donor and recepient blood must match to avoid blood coagulation that could lead to death.

Doctors will also recommend medicines such as corticosteroids medicines. This medicine can stop your immune system from making antibodies (proteins) against red blood cells.

Next is plasmapheresis (plaz-meh-feh-re-sis)..

Plasmapheresis is a procedure that removes antibodies from the blood. For this procedure, blood is taken from your body using a needle inserted into a vein. The plasma, which contains the antibodies, is separated from the rest of the blood. Then, plasma from a donor and the rest of the blood is put back in your body. This treatment may help if other treatments for immune hemolytic anemia don't work.

Surgery, or to be more specific, spleenectomy is a procedure where the spleen is remove. Spleen (limpa in malay) is an organ in the body that is responsible in fighting infections and destructing old and damaged red blood cells. That's a good thing isn't it? BUTTTT! When the spleen is diseased or enlarged, it may destroy more red blood cells than usual causing anaemia. Spleenectomy can help to reduce or stop red blood cell destruction 😃

Like thalessemia, a stem cell and bone marrow transplant is needed as the bone marrow doesn't make enough healthy red blood cells. The damaged bone marrow is replaced with a healthy one from a donor.