Can Beta-Thalassemia Minor have symptoms?

[Bee Cham]

I am 22 years old and have been diagnosed with Beta Thallassemia minor by a doctor. All my life I have felt tired, had palpitations (When I was younger), flatulence and difficulty concentrating and fuzziness. I cannot really look people directly in the eye sometimes because its too hard on my eyes (it strains them) even though I have perfect vision. Doctors have told me that I need no treatment and that Thallassemia has no symtpoms. I go to sleep tired and I wake up tired. I can be tired after 12 hours sleep! Can I be suffering symptoms from my thallassemia. Does any one else feel the same way that I do? This is a little bit hard for me, but I don't want to complain.

[Temari_Kage]

Hi! Lack of concentration can be caused by an iron deficiency. You should never take more iron than you need (when you have tallasemia), but too little of course isn't good either. I calculate my intake regularly (by now I pretty much know without calculating), you can use the online cronometer, for example. When what I ate didn't make for enough iron, I supplement it (I buy tablets that contain a small dosage). And ofcourse I take the folate. Since I started doing that, I only get sick once a year (as opposed to every three weeks) and I feel much, much stronger and more focused.
Maybe with your child there are also other vitamins involved, or maybe the lack of concentration is caused by something else? What do your doctors think?

[Venevil]

Hi!
I'm a mother of a 4, and my 8 year old has thallasemia. I can relate to what melvermat83 says about the kid being "too healty". While she has not been home sick from school more than 2 - 3 times the last 3 years. She does not get what ever the other kids get. But she does get the mind-fog, neck and back pain, and she is very tiny. She is very active, and do not sleep more then the other kids. What I feel is heartbreaking is her lack of consentration. She is so intelligent, and doing good in school. But it takes us all afternoon and evening to get through the homework.  

[Temari_Kage]

I'm guessing that's prob because there's a lot of folic acid in there, which is important to create blood cells?

[Temari_Kage]

Hi everyone,

I'm gonna be brief, because I really should be sleeping (alarm goes off in 2,5hrs ;)). But I was reading up on TM, since it's been bothering me more lately and especially to night (since I was lying awake thinking about it) and found this site/forum...
I live in Holland and I've never met anyone whith this desease. Doctors havn't been able to tell me much and getting the right diagnosis - and _finally_ getting the right tests done to get the diagnosis - was such a battle, you won't believe it. I'm 26, been sick up until 3 years ago when I finally practically forced my doctor to run that simple little test... Been pretty much fine since, up until a few weeks ago.
I was reading all (well, not all, there's quite a few ;)) of your posts, and i found myself just litterally sobbing. O.m.G. Thanks all for sharing.
Temari

[Aquatica]

Hi Stephanie, I had the exact same brain fog for years! I couldn't drive and always felt fatigued.

I also have Thalassemia Minor and had been taken iron tablets everyday for a few years. The 'fog' never went away. I got some tests and nothing came up. The doc (different one to the one who had told me to take the iron tablets everyday) told me to stop taking them as I was overloading on them. She was shocked to hear I'd been taking them for so long.

I stopped taking the tablets and started taking a good womens multivitamin, and guess what?! The brain fog is gone!

[chadhlfg]

This is my third post. I wanted to let you all know how I have been managing my BTM.

I'm sharing this information with the Board because it took me years of trial and error to figure it out.

Whenever anyone does vigorous exercises their hemoglobin will drop. Professional cyclists have long been accused of storing their own blood before the Tour De France and then giving themselves a blood transfusion during the race to bring their Hemoglobin levels back up. A normal Athlete is probably starting the race with a Hemoglobin of 17 and then after many days in a row of vigorous exercises their Hemoglobin may drop to 12 or 13 then they give themselves a blood transfusion of their own stored blood and they are back up to 17.

An athlete with BTM such as myself is starting with a Hemoglobin of 13 which is high for me. After doing some hard cycling events locally (nothing even close to being as difficult as just one day of the Tour De France) but hard for me none the less. My Hemoglobin will drop, and when your starting at 13 it's not that hard to get dangerously low Hemoglobin levels very quickly.

In years past I didn't understand how my Beta Thalassimia affected my training and I would just keep pushing myself, until I would eventually pass out or wind up in the Hospital with very low Hemoglobin levels.

Last year for the first time I was able to purchase a Home Hemoglobin test kit, here is the link. It's called the Stabino Stat Site Mhgb.

http://www.medicalresources.com/shopping/proddisplay.asp?catalogid=8801

I use this monitor weekly with just a finger ***** during hard training to see exactly where my hemoglobin levels are, and when they drop below 10.5, I know I have to back off and give myself more recovery time.

The main effect of low Hemoglobin for Athletes besides the fatigue and tiredness is that your recovery slows down.