Many people, especially women, often ignore constant exhaustion and weakness without seeking medical help. Highlighting one such alarming case, Dr. Priyam Bordoloi, an MD in Internal Medicine, shared the story of a woman whose body had become so severely deprived of blood and oxygen that it reportedly shut down her reproductive system to preserve blood flow to vital organs like the heart and brain.
Sharing the case on social media, Dr. Bordoloi wrote, “Saw a patient today with a hemoglobin of 1.9 g/dL. For context, a level that low is almost incompatible with normal consciousness, but she walked right into the clinic on her own feet.”
According to the doctor, the woman had been battling extreme weakness for nearly three years. Over the last six months, even walking across a room left her breathless. Despite her deteriorating condition, she delayed seeking treatment because her children had important school exams, and later because her husband did not want the inconvenience of hospital admission.
Dr. Bordoloi said her health was treated as a “background inconvenience.”
The situation became even more concerning when doctors discovered that her hemoglobin level had already dropped to 6.4 g/dL a year ago. At the time, she had reportedly been advised immediate hospital admission, but the family refused. She was instead given iron tablets, which she took for only two weeks before discontinuing them.
The woman eventually visited the hospital not because of breathlessness, but because her menstrual cycle had stopped for months.
“Her body was so profoundly starved of iron and oxygen that it literally shut down her reproductive axis just to divert what little blood she had left to her heart and brain,” the doctor explained.
Calling the situation heartbreaking, Dr. Bordoloi said many women continue working silently despite severe health issues, often prioritising family responsibilities over their own wellbeing.
He urged families to pay closer attention to women’s health and stop normalising chronic exhaustion and weakness.
