Is anaemia a common side effect of treatment?

Hi @mazkat Welcome to our head and neck group although most folks would rather be somewhere else. Diagnosed as anaemic. I can't say that is common a year out although I would ensure your thyroid levels are near normal. The thyroid is often damaged from radiation and results in various maladies such as overactive heart or possibly hypo lethargic feeling often confused with anemia. If that has been eliminated in your diagnosis then the doctors can dig deeper.
Typically anemia is an early sign of cancer as your blood supply is feeding the ever growing cancer. Many patients, myself included complain of lethargy for months prior to the finding of cancer. Post cancer however, your body is working overtime to rebuild internal damage from the radiation and at times, the chemo itself. Most post radiation patients complain of loss of energy for roughly two years, again, myself included.
I realize I am not helping much here. I would question how the docs arrived at anemia given what you have just been through. I am not a doctor nor do I play one on television, but that doesn't mean I don't have a scientific opinion. Good luck on the search where the sun does not shine and I hope it turns out clean as it were. Gage your long term recovery from cancer treatment on a month by month basis rather than a daily or weekly measure. Typically seven years for many issues to subside is considered normal. I wish you good healing.

Hello @mazcat. Some chemotherapies more than others are responsible for anemia and it can take a long time to stimulate bone marrow into producing enough red blood cells again. Your doctor can often tell by the CBC (Complete Blood Count) if you are anemic from lack of production of RBCs or a constant overuse of RBCs such as the chronic low grade bleeding of colon cancer and others. If doctors can rule out the common causes then it points toward the more likely diagnosis, which may be that the bone marrow is still in recovery from all the radiation/chemo insults. I have been borderline anemic pretty much throughout my cancer journey since first surgery 13 years ago. It is probably more common than we think.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I had cisplantin chemo. What you are saying makes sense. I was low in iron over Christmas too so maybe I'm having a similar recovery to you

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and for your humour. It's very appreciated! My thyroid levels are good and I've started taking iron 3 times a week which is apparently absorbed better than taking everyday. Hope that solves the issue and it's just a healing thing 🤞

Hi Sue,

Interesting info, I have had low RBCs too since 2008 where I had 35 rounds (7weeks) of Photon radiation for a total of 70Gy and 3 rounds of cisplatin chemo for tonsil cancer but no surgery for that one. I did have about five times where I was in the normal range near the very bottom in the fifteen times I have been tested since 2008.
I also, have been diagnosis with ulcerative colitis in 2017 but it has been in complete remission and had two colonoscopies one being this last February 2025 and both came back total clean.

Congrats on your clean colonoscopies @roblem ! It's interesting about running borderline anemia since radiation and chemo. I didn't even have a particularly suppressive chemo as mine was a targeted therapy with Cetuximab. Perhaps some of us just run better on a lower red count......don't need that hi-test blood.