What is the most common cause of high red blood cell count?

High red blood cell count may be caused by low oxygen levels, kidney disease or other problems.
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Should I worry if my red blood cell count is high?

Should I worry if my red blood cell count is high? Not necessarily. While a high red blood cell count can indicate a disease or disorder, it doesn't always mean you have a health condition. Other factors — like living at a high altitude — can also have an impact on your red blood cell count.
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What conditions may be associated with high red blood cells?

A high red blood cell count can be a sign of:
  • Dehydration.
  • Heart disease.
  • Polycythemia vera, a bone marrow disease that causes too many red blood cells to be made.
  • Scarring of the lungs, often due to cigarette smoking.
  • Lung disease.
  • Kidney cancer.
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How do you fix high red blood cells?

If you have a high RBC count:
  1. Exercise to improve your heart and lung function.
  2. Eat less red meat and iron-rich foods.
  3. Avoid iron supplements.
  4. Keep yourself well hydrated.
  5. Avoid diuretics, including coffee and caffeinated drinks, which can dehydrate you.
  6. Stop smoking, especially if you have COPD or pulmonary fibrosis.
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What does it mean when high red blood cell count?

What is a high red blood cell count? A high red blood cell count is a condition called polycythemia vera. If you have this medical condition, it means that your bone marrow is producing too many red blood cells. This can result in thickening of the blood, slow flow of blood, and eventually blood clots.
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High Red Blood Cells (Erythrocytosis) | Causes, Signs and Symptoms, and Treatment



Can Covid cause high red blood cell count?

Our study demonstrated that patients with COVID-19 had increased blood viscosity despite lower hematocrit than healthy individuals, as well as increased RBC aggregation. In-vitro experiments demonstrated a strong contribution of plasma fibrinogen in this RBC hyper-aggregation.
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What are the symptoms of polycythemia vera?

Symptoms
  • Itchiness, especially after a warm bath or shower.
  • Numbness, tingling, burning, or weakness in your hands, feet, arms or legs.
  • A feeling of fullness soon after eating and bloating or pain in your left upper abdomen due to an enlarged spleen.
  • Unusual bleeding, such as a nosebleed or bleeding gums.
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What is the life expectancy of someone with polycythemia vera?

Recent studies estimate the average life expectancy after diagnosis with polycythemia vera to be about 20 years. The average age of death is about 77. The most common cause of death is complications from blood clots (about 33%). Advancing cancer is the second most common cause (15%).
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Does vitamin D increase red blood cells?

In addition to decreasing pro-inflammatory cytokines, vitamin D has been shown to support erythropoiesis by increasing burst-forming unit-erythroid proliferation (BFU-E) and having a synergistic effect with erythropoietin to further enhance erythroid progenitor cell proliferation [18, 19].
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Can thyroid problems cause high red blood cell count?

Kawa MP and et al in 2010 reported that RBC, HB and HCT in patients with hyperthyroidism were significantly higher than control groups while RBC and HB were decreased in hypothyroidism, while HCT was increased.
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Can dehydration cause high red blood cell count?

Dehydration (If the liquid component of the blood (plasma) is decreased, as in dehydration, the red blood cell count increases. This is due to the red blood cells becoming more concentrated.
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What is the treatment for polycythemia?

The most common treatment for polychythemia vera is having frequent blood withdrawals, using a needle in a vein (phlebotomy). It's the same procedure used for donating blood. This decreases your blood volume and reduces the number of excess blood cells.
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Can high red blood cells cause anxiety?

Background: Depression and anxiety are two common mood disorders that are both linked to systemic inflammation. Increased white blood cell (WBC) count and red cell distribution width (RDW) are associated with negative clinical outcomes in a wide variety of pathological conditions.
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Does drinking water lower hemoglobin?

1. A steady intake of water increases hemoglobin indices, such as the MCH and MCHC, and decreases the MPV.
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Does exercise increase red blood cells?

Exercise training can increase total Hb and red cell mass, which enhances oxygen-carrying capacity.
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Is polycythemia a death sentence?

Is there a cure? There is currently no cure for PV, but the disease is not necessarily a death sentence. According to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the median life expectancy after diagnosis is 20 years.
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How often does polycythemia vera turn into leukemia?

Polycythemia vera transforms to acute leukemia (blast phase) 10 years after diagnosis in about 10% of cases.
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What is difference between polycythemia and polycythemia vera?

Polycythemia, also called erythrocytosis, refers to an increase in red blood cell mass, noted on laboratory evaluation as increased hemoglobin and hematocrit levels. Polycythemia vera is a subtype of polycythemia and is associated with the overproduction of all 3 cell lines.
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What blood test shows polycythemia?

Complete Blood Count (CBC)

This test includes several measurements of red blood cells and white blood cells. Polycythemia vera is often diagnosed based on a routine CBC. Hemoglobin is the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen.
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Does polycythemia affect eyesight?

MPNs are a group of blood cancers characterized by abnormal development of stem cells in the bone marrow. Two specific types of MPNs are associated with vision changes: polycythemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythemia (ET).
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How Covid affects red blood cells?

COVID-19 causes significant changes in the size and rigidity of RBCs; a decrease in the hematocrit level and increased RBCs amplitude referred to as RDW (red blood cell distribution width) has been recorded [107].
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What level of hemoglobin is dangerously high?

The threshold for a high hemoglobin count differs slightly from one medical practice to another. It's generally defined as more than 16.6 grams (g) of hemoglobin per deciliter (dL) of blood for men and 15 g/dL for women.
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Does aspirin lower red blood cell count?

RESULTS: Acute or chronic doses of aspirin reduced the RBC count, hemoglobin and other red cell indices as compared to controls.
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What does HCT mean in a blood test when it is high?

If you've taken a hematocrit test and hematocrit is high, this means that you have more red blood cells than what's considered to be healthy. High hematocrit levels could indicate underlying medical conditions like: Dehydration. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Congenital heart disease.
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What causes elevated red blood cells and hemoglobin?

Medical conditions that can cause high hemoglobin levels include: Polycythemia vera (the bone marrow produces too many red blood cells) Lung diseases such as COPD, emphysema or pulmonary fibrosis (lung tissue becomes scarred) Heart disease, especially congenital heart disease (the baby is born with it)
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