10 Aplastic Anemia Symptoms
Symptom #2: Breathlessness
Breathlessness or shortness of breath refers to the feeling where one is unable to breathe well enough. Patients with shortness of breath, known as dyspnea, often describe it as requiring more effort to breathe, air hunger, and chest tightness. While normal in activities of heavy exertion such as exercise, it can be seen in pathological conditions such as interstitial lung disease, pneumonia, asthma, cardiac ischemia, heart failure, psychogenic causes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and more.
In patients with aplastic anemia, breathlessness occurs due to the lack of red blood cells that function to carry oxygen to the rest of the body. This causes the body to compensate by breathing harder and faster to supply more oxygen to the body.
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