More than 80,000 Americans have been struggling with Sickle Cell Disease (Bennett). Including 1 in 375 African-Americans. When I first heard this number, it was shocking to me. I thought sickle cell was a really rare disease. But then I did the research and found out more. Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder that affects red blood cells, causing them to change the normal disc shape to a sickle shape (Bennett). Sickle Cell Disease Association of America estimates that 70,000 to 100,000 individuals have SCD and 3 million individuals have the sickle cell trait (Terrie). Totally not rare at all. Sickle Cell Disease is an disease that affects many people and comes with many dangers, pain, treatments and possible cures.
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Unfortunately, pain linked to SCD goes treated the wrong way many times. The most common sites for pain include the thigh, hip, knee, abdomen, chest, and lower back (Terrie). Symptoms of SCD also include: fatigue, jaundice (yellowing of the skin), shortness of breath, pain in body organs or joints, pain in body organs or joints, and many more (Bennett). While several drugs have been studied as potential treatments for SCD, In 1998, the FDA approved hydroxyurea for us in symptomatic SCD patients (Terrie). The first question I had when I first learned about sickle cell was, “Is there a cure?”, and I looked up exactly …show more content…
It’s good to diagnose SCD at an early age, after birth even if possible. This lets doctors attack the disease early, letting the child live a more normal life than patients who have to deal with it all their lives. “It’s becoming clear that it is highly important that children with SCD are seen at the earliest possible moment after they are delivered and the diagnosis is made and that they are followed aggressively in the first three to five years of life, particularly to ensure that we minimize the number of very severe events that could occur in those first five years of life,” says Dr. John Cunningham, section chief of pediatric hematology/oncology at the University of Chicago
Unfortunately, pain linked to SCD goes treated the wrong way many times. The most common sites for pain include the thigh, hip, knee, abdomen, chest, and lower back (Terrie). Symptoms of SCD also include: fatigue, jaundice (yellowing of the skin), shortness of breath, pain in body organs or joints, pain in body organs or joints, and many more (Bennett). While several drugs have been studied as potential treatments for SCD, In 1998, the FDA approved hydroxyurea for us in symptomatic SCD patients (Terrie). The first question I had when I first learned about sickle cell was, “Is there a cure?”, and I looked up exactly …show more content…
It’s good to diagnose SCD at an early age, after birth even if possible. This lets doctors attack the disease early, letting the child live a more normal life than patients who have to deal with it all their lives. “It’s becoming clear that it is highly important that children with SCD are seen at the earliest possible moment after they are delivered and the diagnosis is made and that they are followed aggressively in the first three to five years of life, particularly to ensure that we minimize the number of very severe events that could occur in those first five years of life,” says Dr. John Cunningham, section chief of pediatric hematology/oncology at the University of Chicago