The number of people receiving life-threatening medical diagnoses is steadily increasing. While the likelihood of acquiring a critical illness is rising, the age at which it first manifests itself steadily declines. Such terrible diseases are now being detected in people as young as 20 and 30. As a result, there is no predetermined standard for choosing a health insurance plan. On the contrary, it has become an absolute must. And if it is a critical illness such as a rare blood disorder like aplastic anaemia, you should seriously consider buying an appropriate insurance policy if you haven’t already. Let’s check the complications of aplastic anaemia, the applicable treatment, and how health insurance can let you feel at home should you get affected by this disease.
Let’s Understand Aplastic Anaemia
When the body ceases making enough new blood cells, aplastic anaemia develops. You get worn out and are more vulnerable to infections and uncontrolled bleeding due to this condition. Aplastic anaemia is a rare and dangerous illness that can appear at any age. It might happen quickly or steadily and get worse over time. It might be light or heavy. Aplastic anaemia may be transient or develop into a chronic condition.
Symptoms
Aplastic anaemia may not really show any signs. However, the symptoms may include:
- Fatigue
- Breathing difficulty
- Irregular or quick heartbeat
- Light skin
- Recurring or ongoing infections
- Simple or mysterious bruising
- Bleeding gums with a running nose
- Continuous bleeding from wounds
- Dizziness with skin rash
- Headache/fever
Risk Factors
Aplastic anaemia is uncommon. Risk-increasing elements include:
- High-dose radiation or chemotherapy for cancer treatment
- Exposure to toxic substances
- The usage of various prescription medications, such as gold compounds used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and chloramphenicol, which is used to treat bacterial infections
- Several autoimmune conditions, blood illnesses, and severe infections
Causes
The stem cells in aplastic anaemia are harmed. As a result, the bone marrow is either aplastic (empty) or has a small number of blood cells (hypoplastic). The most common cause of aplastic anaemia is from your immune system attacking the stem cells in your bone marrow. Other elements that can harm bone marrow and influence the generation of blood cells include:
- Radiation and Chemotherapy Treatments - Aplastic anaemia can be a temporary side effect of these treatments.
- Exposure to toxic chemicals - Pesticides and insecticides, and benzene, an ingredient in gasoline, have been linked to aplastic anaemia.
- Use of Certain Drugs - Those used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and some antibiotics, can cause aplastic anaemia.
- Autoimmune Disorders - where immune system attacks healthy cells involving stem cells in the bone marrow.
- Viral Infection - Hepatitis, Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, parvovirus B19 and HIV
Treatment
Depending on your age and the severity of condition, you may need to have bone marrow transplants, blood transfusions, medication, or observation for aplastic anaemia. Your blood cell counts are dangerously low in severe aplastic anaemia, which necessitates quick hospitalisation.
Health Insurance for Aplastic anaemia Patients
Without health insurance, it could be difficult to pay for hospitalisation and surgery because the costs of treating aplastic anaemia can be high. Several diseases, such as the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Hepatitis, HIV, and exposure to toxic substances or ionising radiation, can lead to bone marrow degradation, which, in turn, results in aplastic anaemia.
As a result, the insurance provider would ask for the patient's medical history information, including prescriptions, doses and other pertinent details, before extending health insurance to the anaemic anaplastic patient. Insurers can ask you to submit prescriptions from doctors, diagnostic reports, etc. They may even ask you to submit to a medical test at a lab. The insurance firm reviews the test results and compares them to the standards after receiving them. Pre-existing medical issues always carry a higher cost.
In exchange for the coverage against aplastic anaemia, the insurer will charge a premium. What you also need to look at is whether the coverage for the same comes under a regular health insurance plan or a critical illness plan. Check the policy brochures of these two plan types and see which covers this ailment and to the maximum extent, both in terms of amount and medical procedures.
Let us brief you on regular and critical illness health insurance plans before we move further. A regular health insurance plan covers numerous illnesses for expenses incurred during, before and after hiospitalisation, subject to the sum insured and other limits as specified in the policy. Whereas a critical illness policy usually disburses you a lump sum amount upon the diagnosis of a covered illness. You may have to survive for about a month to get that amount.
Conclusion
Everyone knows how important it is to have a suitable and healthy lifestyle during a pandemic, but it's also crucial to watch out for other physical signs that could signal other conditions like aplastic anaemia. Choose a health insurance plan that will cover the most up-to-date treatments while also giving you and your family peace of mind.
Read more -
- Beware of these 6 Major Communicable Diseases in India
- FAQs on Pre-existing Disease Coverage in Health Plans
