[yazzyfooty]

Anemia is a decrease of red blood cells in the blood, these cells transport 02 around the body. A Lack of red cells=02 which contributes to aching and painful muscles, fatigue and shortness of breath.

Would breathing off a cylinder of 80% nitrox mix help energise the body a bit?

 

[craige]

My thoughts:

Anaemia is a reduction in Haemoglobin within the blood (part of the red blood cell - there are 4 Haem groups per red blood cell).
However, most well people have pretty much fully saturated Haemoglobin in normal room air (ie 21% oxygen). Check this out by putting on a Sats probe on your finger. So breathing 80% nitrox is not going to make much difference. The only difference it will make is in the dissolved oxygen within the blood, but think this is going to be a relatively small effect. The time higher oxygen concentrations are used is those who have chronic lung conditions where the effectiveness of the lung is greatly reduced such as those with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Rather you need to look for the cause of the anaemia.

Aching and painful muscles is as a result of anaerobic respiration. Due to not enough oxygen they respire anaerobically and hence lactic acid is formed as a by product. This is what gives the ache and pain.

Hope that helps

 

[witchieblackcat]

Maybe. Your red blood cells would get no more oxygen (because they're already loaded up and the problem is a lack of them as you say) but you'd possibly get more oxygen dissolved in the blood. Give it a try?

Oh stay upstairs though so you don't go too close to the MOD

 

[Hickdive]

Breathing O2 (or 80%) will certainly make up for some of the reduced carrying capacity of the haemoglobin by dissolving more oxygen into the plasma, however the effect will be transient and disappear very quickly once you cease breathing the enriched mix.

Much better to address the underlying cause, I could wake the haematology BMS upstairs for advice but as my life is quite precious and she's cranky on nightshift I suggest a visit to your GP and a blood test/referral as appropriate instead.

 

[Mary]

In air and at the surface in someone who is not anaemic about 97% of the O2 will be carried by the haemoglobin and 3% dissolved in plasma. If someone is anaemic then the proportion in solution (the plasma bit) will relatively increase as the amount of haemoglobin decreases but only because the haemoglobin decreases, in it'self the plasma is still saturated. However even if you increase the PO2 (by say breathing 80% O2)the actual amount in solution only increases by a small amount (at a rate of 0.003 ml O2/100ml of blood /mmHg PO2) and then the O2 carrying potential curve moves ever so slightly to the left. Figure 2B in the attached webpage shows relatively actually how small the shift is.
The Physiology of Oxygen Delivery (page 1)

Even if you were to try this the effects would only last as long as you were breathing the gas and for very shortly after. What you need is more haemoglobin molecules!

What is most important is to work out why someone is anaemic and potentially treat the cause (I trust this is all under control).