Hemophilia

Hemophilia What isHemophilia? Hemophilia is a genetic disease in which the body cannot control blood clotting. This disease is recessive and may occur in males and females. However, it is more likely to occur in males. This is because males have XY chromosomes, and females have XX chromosomes. For a person to have hemophilia all of their X chromosomes have to be infected. Males only have one X chromosome so only one has to be infected for the male to have hemophilia. Females have two X chromosomes, and two sex chromosomes infected is a much lower probability than only one sex chromosome being infected. However, overall this disease is very rare and is genetic. What are the affects of Hemophilia? The affects of hemophilia are severe. Since hemophilia impairs the ability to control clotting, the main affect is bleeding. Hemophilia will cause you to frequently bleed after an injury, surgery, and even dental work. It will make you bruise very easily. To add to that, bruises will have more intense swelling. Lastly, your nervous system won’t work the way it’s supposed to. In other words, you would be very numb at times, and at other times just simple movement will cause pain and swelling. You could probably feel great sympathy for hemophiliac patients. How can we treat Hemophilia? Themain treatment for hemophilia is called replacement therapy. This is injecting clotting factor 4 for hemophilia A, or clotting factor 5 for hemophilia B into the vein. Clotting factor is just another word for hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the material in your blood that allows it to control clotting. By injecting hemoglobin in the vein, the body will control clotting better and the affects will be a lot less severe. There is a 0% chance of any children having hemophilia because there are no cases on the punnent square in which 100% of the X chromosomes are infected. The father does have hemophiliia however.

This a picture of a patient with hemophilia.