Sickle Cell Anemia

Sickle Cell Anemia 

Cause

Sickle cell anemia is caused by a recessive allele. 

Symptoms

Pain in the joints, abnormal breakdown of red blood cells, yellowing of the skin and/or eyes, shortness of breath. 

Detection

To detect sickle cell anemia doctors will sample some of the fluid surrounding the baby in the mothers womb or have blood tested. 

Treatment

Medication, blood transfusion and sometimes (but rarely) a bone marrow transplant

Life Expectancy

60 for males and 68 for females. 

Facts

Sickle cell anemia primarily affects people of african decent, hispanic-americans, and middle eastern decent. 

1 in every 365 african americans will be affected by sickle cell anemia. 

People with sickle cell anemia are actually immune to malaria. They are immune because of the genetic change in hemoglobin that protects against malaria but on the downside causes the person to have sickle cell anemia. 

Reflection

I found out a lot about this subject when doing the sickle cell anemia keynote and typing the information back onto the blog was a good refresher. I was surprised on the look of a normal blood cell compared to a sickle cell blood cell. If I'm being honest the topic didn't really interest me but, I'm glad to be informed on what sickle cell anemia is. 

Citations

• https://medlineplus.gov/sicklecellanemia.html

• • https://medlineplus.gov/sicklecellanemia.html