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Definition Thalassemia: Symptoms and Treatment

Description of Thalassemia

This disease is rather scary for the person that has it. There are also three different types of this disease so that means that it can appear in three different ways. Thalassemia is a blood disease that is inherited from the parents of the child. There are a lot of children that are born with this disease because of the genes that are in both of the child’s parents. Statistics show that just over 100,000 babies are born every single year with this disease, which they have inherited from their parents. The children that are part of this 100,000 statistic are usually born with the more severe type of Thalassemia. However the high percentage of these 100,000 children seem to be from certain parts of the world and the most common places for this disease to appear is in Italy, Greece, the Middle East and also Southern parts of Asia. This disease is usually caused by red blood cell deficiencies the different kinds of this disease will usually result on the different amounts of oxygen lacking in the red blood cells. If you have less oxygen in your blood cells then this will result in you contracting the more severe form of this disease.

Vulnerable Age Group

There are a few certain age groups and also locations that are vulnerable to this disease. Keeping in mind that it is inherited from the child’s parents it seems that thalassemia can show up at anytime but it all depends on what type of severity of this disease you have. If you only have a mild form of this disease then it is likely that you will not show any signs of this disease until later on in your life. But the more severe types of this disease will appear at a very young age. This is usually straight after the birth or a few months after the birth. Also as described above there are certain areas of the globe that are vulnerable to this disease some of them are in Europe (Italy and Greece) while others are located in South Asia and also the Middle East. These countries and continents are the most prone countries to have this disease on their shores.

The Three Forms

As described above there are three different types of thalassemia and they are all discovered on the patients at separate age groups. However the more severe form of thalassemia is found on people who are located in Southeast Asia as well as Chinese people. This severe form of this disease is usually found in small children who have contracted this disease from their parents. Whenever someone discovers that they have this disease they also will have anemia but having the severe form of this disease does not mean that they will also have a severe form of anemia. Most children that are born with this disease will have varying degrees of anemia, this means that they may have a mild form of anemia or they might have the more severe case of anemia. If you discover that you have an intermediate form of this disease then you will only have a mild form of anemia. The signs of the intermediate stage showing up will usually be when the patient is in their teenage years. If you are a patient who has the minor form of this disease then it may cause no symptoms to show but there will still be changes in your blood.

Treatments for Thalassemia

Luckily there are treatments available for all the different forms of thalassemia. If you do have the more severe type of this disease then you will have a blood transfusion and you will also be given oral antibiotics to help you combat this disease in your body. If you do have the intermediate form of this disease then usually a blood transfusion will not be required. But if there are complications that appear in the patient later on then they will be recommended to take a blood transfusion to help them overcome the complications. There is the option of having a bone marrow transplant but this is only if there is a complete match this procedure is still very risky and there is the chance of death if the procedure does not work.

Hope this article will provide you infomation about thalassemia.

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