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
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