Sickle cell anaemia - Essay Example

rised by the presence of an atypical haemoglobin type S which is rigid, fragile and crescent-like cells that easily die off making a person record low red blood cells count. The disease is inherited by children from their parents and sufferers usually experience anaemia in which the red blood cells are in low count since they (sickle cells) die within a period of about 3 weeks unlike the normal red blood cells that die after 4 months. This leaves the body with low energy and constant tiredness owing to lack of oxygen for respiration.

Episodic pains are as well experienced owing to the barricade they cause along the blood vessels (Steinberg, 2009:83). Sickle cell anaemia is considered is a blood cell disorder passed from parent to child. The disorder comes when there are inflexible and hemispherical blood cells that are atypical as compared to the standard and regular red blood cells that are usually supple (Mehta, 2009:33). These abnormal cells (haemoglobin S) do not enable free flow of oxygen to the entire body as it should be for energy generation as they get wedged and jammed along the blood vessel thereby blocking the ‘blood highway’.

This blockage account for the pain that patients suffering encounter and the lack of oxygen supply brings about serious fatigue. It is regarded as another type of anaemia disorder in which cells necessary for carrying oxygen are lacking or few in number. The disease is inherited in an ‘autosomal recessive inheritance’ pattern in which both parents have to transmit the genetic material to the baby for the child to suffer otherwise if its only one parent then the child will be a carrier and not manifest the symptoms.

Since sickle cell anaemia is a blood disorder, it is diagnosed through testing the blood for individuals who have already been born although it is possible to detect the disorder even in unborn babies in which fluid in the amniotic tissue is tested to check for the presence of Haemoglobin S which is the