The+Treatment+of+Sickle+cell+Anemia-Yu+Sheng+(Roger)+Wu

The Treatment of Sickle cell Anemia Yu Sheng Wu  Many people believe that all diseases have a widely available cure-well a handful of diseases don’t. And you guessed it, Sickle cell anemia is one of them. Why? Sickle cells are found everywhere inside the bloodstream, curing it would mean that you would have to sift through every milliliter of blood to find these sickle cells, which is frankly-impossible.

People with Sickle cell anemia need constant medical care, due to this case some doctors and clinics focus entirely on these types of diseases. Hematologists and Pediatric Hematologists are also responsible for these types of care. However, sickle cell anemia treatment is only based on 5 aspects of the symptoms-pain, Infections, stroke, acute chest syndrome and eye problems.

Beneath this text is all the information of these symptom treatments in a nutshell. I won’t go in depth into the scientific stuff on how the symptoms work though.

Pain: Pain is a major part of sickle cell anemia. Small pains are treated with OTC (over the counter) pain killers and heat pads. Severe pain is treated in a hospital There are 2 main type of severe pains, acute and pain crises. In acute pains, they treat you with fluid pain killers, using these fluid pain killers are good because they can prevent you from dehydrating. They are either given through the mouth or injected into a vein. Crises however, are treated with narcotics, however, they will never overdose you in case of narcotic addiction. If you get pain crises constantly, they prescribe you with hydroxyurea. It doesn’t get rid of your pain but it prevents them.

Stroke: Stroke treatment is now widely available, now children and adult with the disease can get regular ultrasound scans in their brain to check for stroke risks. If one adult or a child gets a high risk, they can now treat you with routine blood transfusions. This has been shown to reduce the amount of sickle cell caused strokes.

Infections: Children with signs of infections (fever, coughs) are regularly dosed with penicillin, this will continue until they are 5. Older children and adults are required to get regular flu vaccinations and pneumonia vaccinations to prevent infections.

Acute chest syndrome: Treatments include hospitalization, oxygen, blood transfusions, antibiotics, pain medicine, and checking the body's fluids. That’s all Eye problems: Sickle cells can damage the retina, so children and adult with sickle cell anemia get regular checkups for damaging in the retina. Once they detect any damage, they can wheel them into the gurney for fast, swift surgery.

To get rid of sickle cell anemia completely is a different case, there are a few alternatives. Cord blood transplants, stem cell transplants and gene therapies. So far, few miracles have been created by these treatments, but there is one special case. Click here to see it. ||Cause||Effects||Treatment||Prevention||Choice||Notes||MLA||Quiz||Home||

Quiz Question: How do blood transfusions help sickle cell patients with stroke?