SICKLE CELL ANEMIA

Sickle Cell Anemia

Sickle Cell Anemia

Introduction

Sickle cell anemia is a disease in which your body produces abnormally shaped red blood cells. The cells are shaped like a crescent or sickle. They don't last as long as normal, round red blood cells, which leads to anemia. The sickle cells also get stuck in blood vessels, blocking blood flow. This can cause pain and organ damage (Nienhuis, 2003).

Symptoms

At first, the symptoms of sickle cell anemia are not usually very obvious. However, having sickle cell anemia can result in many symptoms. The first most typical symptom is the changing of shape in blood cells. The disease causes red blood cells to change from their normal, round shape into a long, curved shape, which looks like the blade of a sickle (Barton, 2003). Sickle cells are very brittle break and easily break apart.

Sickle cells have a lifespan of a mere ten to twenty days, whereas regular blood cells have a lifespan of one hundred-twenty days (Barton, 2003). Since the sickle cells have a shorter lifespan, there is a serious loss of red blood cells in the body. This is the reason sickle cell disease is often called sickle cell anemia, since anemia means severe loss of red blood cells which is typical to this. There are many more problems with sickle cell anemia and the worst part is that most of these symptoms can last for a person's entire life. The reason for this is because sickle cell anemia is a chronic disease, meaning a person can live with it for their entire life.

Treatments

Ever since scientists found out about sickle cell anemia, they have been working on treatments and cures. One fairly successful treatment is a blood transfusion. Blood transfusions have raised life expectancy in people with sickle cell anemia (Seppa, 2001). ...