Does the fact that someone does not sleep at night can affect his anemic condition even more,even if they get some sleep during the day?Is it true that the body is more suceptible to get sicker and feel weaker at night than during the day? Thank you!

Hi,

Anemia causes exercise intolerance, weakness, and fatigue among many other potential symptoms. When we are tired, we often do less and sleep more. This helps if the fatigue and tiredness are due to excessive physical activity or lack of sleep, but generally does not help with anemia-associated fatigue. You can spend the whole day in bed and still feel wiped out. Does spending the day (or night) in bed improve anemia? No, it doesn't. Anemia has many causes - nutritional deficiencies, bleeding, medication toxicities, infections, and even HIV itself. Treatment of anemia depends on the cause or causes. Iron or vitamin supplements would be helpful for some nutritional deficiencies. Procrit, a medication that stimulates the production of new red blood cells, is the best treatment for anemia of chronic disease (HIV or cancer) and some medication toxicities (AZT).

Hope that helps.

Good luck.

Dr. Bob