Thalassemia

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Everything You Need to Know about Thalassemia
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• Thalassemia is a genetic disease caused the
  abnormal production of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin
  circulates oxygen throughout your body. This is a
  type of disorder that eventually takes you to a
  state of anemia, as your red blood corpuscles
  become unhealthy.

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Types of thalassemia

• Basically, thalassemia takes two forms Alpha and
  Beta.
• Abnormality in the alpha protein of red blood
  cells results in alpha thalassemia, while the
  same when happens to the beta protein results in
  beta thalassemia.

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• These are again subdivided into thalassemia major
  and thalassemia minor.
• Unborn babies with alpha thalassemia major die
  during the pregnancy period, whereas in the case
  of beta major the child will likely show the
  symptoms of anemia only much later.
• In minor alpha and beta thalassemia the patients
  have tiny red blood corpuscles and show no
  significant symptoms.

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How will you know if you have thalassemia

• There are a range of symptoms associated with
  thalassemia disease such as pale skin,
  exhaustion, facial deformity, dark urine,
  retarded growth, etc.

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Diagnosis

• The laboratory you approach first takes your
  blood sample for testing. Through a careful
  microscopic test they analyse the shape of the
  red blood corpuscles. If they find irregularly
  shaped cells, they'll further conduct a
  hemoglobin electrophoresis to determine the type
  of disorder.

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The cure

• Patients diagnosed with thalassemia can possibly
  undergo one or more of the following treatments
• Medication such as folic acid supplements
• blood transfusion
• Spleen-related surgery
• Chelation
• Stem cell transplant

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• Blood transfusion is the most commonly done
  treatment for thalassemia but it comes with its
  own risks. This causes an abnormal increase in
  the deposit of iron in blood, which can only be
  treated using chelation therapy. Blood
  transfusion becomes difficult with age and you
  will have to undergo 3-4 times in a month as you
  age.

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• Genetic disease such a thalassemia can hardly be
  prevented. The only way possible is seeking the
  help of an expert doctor.

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Thank you