I'm experiencing anaemia-related fatigue at the moment and I have no idea if it's the kind of fatigue where resting more will help me feel less tired, or if the only thing that's going to reduce the fatigue is resolving the anaemia.
I was diagnosed with anaemia last November, after experiencing a bunch of symptoms (angular cheilitis, significant fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness & mild dizziness while doing ordinary activities like laundry/showering, cold hands & feet even when the ambient temperature is warm enough). I don't know what's causing it or what kind of anaemia it is, but I'm following up on this with my doctor at the moment (I'm 30, AFAB non-binary, but I don't menstruate and haven't done so since 2013, which is the usual cause of anaemia in someone my age with female-coded physiology).
I've been taking 400mg ferrous sulfate every day since late November, and it's helped a bit (the angular cheilitis is less severe but still present; the breathlessness while doing normal stuff is better) but I still feel really exhausted and the brain fog is causing me more issues now than it was before Christmas. I'm wondering if this is the kind of fatigue that will respond at least a bit if I try some short-term lifestyle modifications (resting/sleeping more, doing less, taking time off work or working from home more often), or if the only thing that will really help is getting the anaemia under control.
I find resting difficult overall and often mentally misclassify how "restful" my downtime actually is - my biggest non-work hobby activity at the moment is editing a long piece of fiction, which in practice is as much "work" as my paid employment is, and I'm spending a decent chunk of my free time doing that. I could rest more but I'd need to be mindful about actually doing it.
But if resting more and doing less isn't actually going to help with the fatigue all that much, I'd rather knuckle through and carry on doing as much "normal" activity as I can; I'd hate to scale back what I'm doing even further, when I feel I've already had to scale back what I'm doing to deal with the anaemia fatigue, only to find that doing so doesn't really change how I feel. In short, if more rest will actually help then I'm willing to try it, but if I'm going to feel crappy either way then I'd rather feel crappy while getting stuff done. Does anyone have experience of whether resting more actually helps with this kind of fatigue?
I'm explicitly not looking for medical/dietary advice - I only want advice about fatigue management when dealing with anaemia, not that I should be cooking with cast iron or eating more tofu etc. |
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