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I need help with treatment costs

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I've always had iron-deficiency anaemia. Just over a year ago my fatigue started getting really bad. At one point I couldn't even lift up a glass to drink from it. The doctor did some bloods to check my thyroid and a few other things. Iron-deficiency anaemia is a low haemoglobin level as a result of iron deficiency. I also have B12-deficiency anaemia, as well as folate deficiency. So it's a triple whammy of symptoms. The main one is fatigue, which is completely disabling, but I also get constant infections (hence fevers of sometimes 40 degrees), my hair is falling out in clumps, I'm dizzy all the time, sometimes I faint out of the blue, every part of me hurts every day, walking even short distances makes me very out of breath because there's just not enough oxygen in me to get to the places that need it. Most days for the past year have been spent in bed. Which obviously exacerbates my depression and has set me back in the progress I made with my agoraphobia. I am more malnourished than I was when I was anorexic.

The normal treatment for iron-deficiency anaemia is iron supplements. However, after taking a few different forms of iron and my levels never increasing (actually, they were dropping), they realised that I'm not absorbing them. They had to investigate why this was and the conclusion is that years of undiagnosed Coeliac Disease has left me with a gut very damaged by gluten. My haemoglobin dropped so low that I was offered a blood transfusion but while I was on a waiting list for haematology I started to display signs of neurological damage from the B12 deficiency. This can be irreversible so they decided they needed to treat that side of things ASAP. I had a course of B12 injections which raised my levels slightly (I'm still very deficient). They also raised my haemoglobin slightly, which means I am now above the threshold for a blood transfusion on the NHS but still severely anaemic with no end in sight.

So I either have to get sicker again, in order to be given a blood transfusion, and risk more neurological damage, or I have to pay for an iron infusion via a private healthcare provider, which I can't afford to do. 

Any support at all is helpful, if you can't afford to donate anything I completely understand. Many thanks if you can help in any way, even if it's just £1! 

Organiser

Victoria Plum
Organiser

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