Exercise and low rbc count
 

My husband has always been a fitness freak and has continued to work out through his year and half bout with MDS. He has been taking a Procrit shot every two weeks and done fairly well with maintaining his numbers. However, his number have recently tanked and he received his first transfusion yesterday. His Dr. had said no exercise except walking. Even though he has no energy, he would still like to lift light weights etc. Thoughts??

Weight lifting requires a lot of HGB to power those oxygen hungry muscles. From my experience, when my counts were low, and I needed a transfusion, walking up stairs was difficult. I realize everyone takes having low counts differently, but I remember blackouts to be common. Even with light weight, that could be a problem.

Walk, walk, walk and take breaks when necessary. Even as a long distance running 26 year old, it was difficult to do much more than that when my HGB got below 8. But staying active is huge.

Those are my thoughts.

Brian

I agree with Brian. Five pound weights might be OK for muscle tone.
Listen to your body. Things will get better and then you can do more.

Thank you for the replies. I was hoping that he would have a lot more energy after the transfusion, but not much change. Don't know what the next step will be.

Could I ask how old he is, what his diagnosis is, and what are the dr.'s suggesting?

I would start off slow and listen to your body and I would look into the use of Procrit, allthough it has its pourpose it can be a very dangerous drug in the long term

Seconding this. I went from running 30km a week to barely being able to walk up a flight of stairs in two weeks, due to my counts plummeting. It's frustrating when you see everyone else exercising, but he needs to focus on utilising the little blood he's got in the most frugal way possible now.

He is back in the gym slowly walking on the treadmill and lifting light weights. It makes him feel better and maintain some semblance to his normal life.