Skip to main content

Saturday With Your Doctor ; Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)

Welcome to another edition of Saturday health tips with Dr Nshe MD

Last week I gave a general overview of health and the various aspects of health and what you need to do to at least keep that aspect up and running.

This week I am going to be talking about sickle cell disease.

The World sickle cell day is 19th of June, yearly. This year like every other it was celebrated with the theme,"HOW RARE DISEASE AWARENESS LEADS TO QUALITY CARE, TREATMENT "

What is this sickle cell disease?
Sickle cell disease has become a common and foremost genetic disease worldwide which is must to cure through the fast awareness campaign, curable activities, early diagnosis and management.

It is a genetic disease in that the father and mother of a child are responsible for the transmission of the disease to the child to make him/her SS or SC. This disease affects red blood cells.

Sickle cell anaemia means person suffering from anaemia (less number of haemoglobin- red pigment in blood) due to the abnormal shaped red blood cells which gets stuck in their small blood vessels and cause blockage in the continuation of the blood flow in the blood vessels and whole body organs cannot get proper oxygen which leads to the common health problems like severe pain, organ damage or failure, severe infections, stroke, headache, liver problems, heart problems and so many. For a child/person to manifest any of the symptoms (complaints) which are listed above among others to be listed below, his/her father or mother would have contributed an S gene, sickle cell gene.

Who is a carrier or AS - any one with the sickle cell gene that is of course able to transfer to his/her child.

MYTHS ABOUT SICKLE CELL DISEASE

Premature Death (before 21yrs)- not true, as there are many persons over that age living happily with SCDx

Sickle cell crisis ceases after 21 years- from 21years, it has been noticed that many of the people with  the disease know the triggers so they avoid them leading infrequent crises.

Reincarnation- of course since they die early and many of parents continue to conceive, they are thought to be reincarnated.

Punishment by gods: The parents are usually been seen as ones being punished because of the challenges involved with raising them.

Possession by Evil spirits: Igbo refer to them as “Ogbanje” ,Yoruba call them “Abiku” and the Hausa's, ‘Iska’.

HOW DOES THIS SCDx MANIFEST?

Symptoms begin to manifest from six months of life. The problems seen in people suffering from sickle cell dx are due to destruction of the RBC which are sickled. Sickling of RBCs is brought about by: stressful conditions- exercise, emotional stress, etc; extremes of temperature, infections, low oxygen levels(very high altitudes) ad these results in Anaemia (low blood), chronic leg ulcers(wounds in the legs), jaundice(yellowing of the eyes), facial bone deformities etc.

HOW DO I KNOW MY GENOTYPE?

Haemoglobin Electrophoresis- a blood test that tells you whether you are AA, AS, or SS.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?( what is my part in this whole sickle cell story?)

Health education of youths : the aim of this entire write up is to enlighten you so that we reduce the risk of transmission and to help you teach and or inform another person so that they won't get married and have children with this disease.

Pre-marital genetic counselling- if you have a trait (that is you carry a gene that will mix with that of your spouse and result in a child with SCDx) then you need to know the options available.

Support, advocate and care for those already born with the disorder.

I will continue from here next week Saturday, so make it a date with me and If you have any questions or you want to share something with me, send it to mukzydave@yahoo.com. You can also follow me on twitter @NsheMuknaan.

©theINSIGHT 2015


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

God's Got You

I was on a trip recently and we drove into a difficult terrain. The driver did well by maneuvering the terrain well and got us safely out of it. However, during this drifting, I doubted his professionalism to get us out safely, in fact I panicked, I gave my opinions and advise based on my experience of driving. Unfortunately, my driver will do the opposite, stating reasons why my counsel will not work and truthfully, his judgement always proves to be right and at the end he drove us safely to our destination. This experience got me to think of how many times we have given God our thoughts and advice on what he should do or should have done. We tell him the direction we feel is right for us to go and at times drag the steering with Him. God is to be trusted. The moment you make him the driver of your life, you can trust him to take you safely to a glorious destination. The terrain may be difficult, He might drive you through surprising and difficult places, just hold on and trust him. H...

Relationships: 5 Ways to Apologize

Because we are relational beings we tend to offend others and step on each other’s toe but then if we want to maintain a peaceful life and continue to enjoy our relationship with them we must know how to apologize. And because we are different and unique, each of us has a way of which we want the apology to be expressed. No wonder sometimes we apologize and it seems the other person is not satisfied. It’s not that you didn’t apologize just that you didn’t express it in the language they will understand. You must therefore understand the apology language of the other person in other for both of you to be reconciled. Therefore let me share with you five ways you express apology Expressing Regret: "I am sorry." "I feel badly that my behavior has hurt you so deeply." This language identifies with the emotions of the offended party. Accepting Responsibility: "I was wrong." Name your mistake and accept fault. "I should not have done that. There...

Nigeria At 55: Look Back...Look Forward.

Yesterday, we celebrated our 55th independence anniversary and while pondering on what to write to commemorate our 55th independence day celebration, I discovered there are a lot of perspectives I could write from. So many topics and issues quickly raced through my mind, like, '55 Years After; How far so far?' 'Independence or Dependence, Where are we going? Etc. But in the midst of it all something exceptional dropped on my mind; which is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving? Yes. Thanksgiving. Many would be quick to analyse, condemn, discuss and compare the state of the nation being 55 years after we got independence, well, that's not bad. But isn't it good for a man at 55 to thank God for the years past spent? Ask any 55 years old man and he will tell you it has been rough and tough, appointments and disappointments, joys and sorrows, ups and downs, successes and failures, but yet he will be grateful for the privilege of being alive to see 55. How does Nigeria fit in...