Blood · For patients and doctors
Enter the numbers from your blood report. You get how low your haemoglobin is, what type of anaemia the report shows, the likely causes, the next tests to ask for and when to go to hospital. Doctors get the full work-up: iron indices with the right cut-off, the reticulocyte index, the investigation pathway and treatment notes.
A guide, not a diagnosis. Anaemia is a sign, not a disease: something is causing it, and that cause must be found. Take the result to your doctor. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
Go to hospital now if you have chest pain, breathlessness at rest, fainting, black stools, vomiting of blood or heavy bleeding.
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Haemoglobin is the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. Anaemia means the haemoglobin is below the normal level for your age, sex and pregnancy stage. The WHO cut-off for most adult women is 12 g/dL and for adult men 13 g/dL. In India, 57% of women aged 15 to 49 and 25% of men are anaemic (NFHS-5, 2019 to 2021), so it is common. Common does not mean harmless: the cause still needs to be found.
MCV is the average size of your red cells. Small cells (low MCV, usually below 80) most often mean iron deficiency or thalassaemia trait. Large cells (high MCV, usually above 100) point to low vitamin B12 or folate, alcohol, thyroid or liver problems, or some medicines. Normal-sized cells point to kidney disease, long-term illness, recent bleeding, or a mix of two deficiencies that cancel each other out.
Ferritin shows how much iron the body has stored. A low ferritin means low iron, almost always. But ferritin rises with infection, inflammation, kidney disease and liver disease, so a "normal" ferritin does not rule out low iron in those situations. That is why the doctor may also look at transferrin saturation and CRP.
About 3 to 4 in 100 Indians carry beta thalassaemia trait. Carriers have small red cells and mild anaemia, but normal iron. Iron tablets do not help them and may harm if given for years. The test is an HPLC (haemoglobin electrophoresis). If both partners are carriers, each pregnancy has a 1 in 4 chance of a child with thalassaemia major, so the partner should be tested too.
Iron tablets, B12 injections and multivitamins change the very results the doctor needs. A ferritin drawn after a week of iron, or a B12 drawn after an injection, can look normal and hide the cause. Get the blood drawn first, then start treatment, unless your doctor says otherwise.
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