Hemophilia-+Claire+Weaver

Hemophilia is an inherited disease that prevents your blood from clotting. It occurs in 1 out of every 4000 men and in considerably less women.

If you have hemophilia, you lack the proteins that cause your blood to clot. When a person without hemophilia starts to bleed, blood proteins called platelets group around the wound and form a clot. In hemophilia, the platelets do not function correctly, and nothing stops the bleeding. This means that you will keep bleeding until you die unless preventative measures are taken. This is particularly painful with bleeding in your joints and particularly dangerous with head injuries.

Hemophilia is carried on the X chromosome. Unless women get two chromosomes with hemophilic genes, they do not have hemophilia. That is why so many more men than women have hemophilia. Men only need one hemophilic gene to have it. So women can be carriers and never know it. It can be passed down for generations before a boy gets the gene or a women gets two of the genes and the person presents with hemophilia. Then people have to go back to family histories and find all of the possible carriers. It can also come from an egg with a randomly mutated X chromosome, so it is possible to get hemophilia without being related to a carrier. It is very hard to diagnose hemophilia because it shares symptoms with many other disorders, such as Von Willebrand, Dysfibrinogenemia, Hypofibrinogenemia, Thrombocytopenia, and Bernaid-Soulier Syndrome.

HISTORY: Queen Victoria of England carried the hemophilia gene (she herself didn't have it) and passed it to some of her descendants, including Alexander Romanov - the heir to the russian throne. A mysterious man named Rasputin was hired to control Alexander's disorder. The public then blamed all the queen's bad decisions on the influence of Rasputin, and the unrest eventually turned into a revolutionary dispute.

TREATMENT:

People with hemophilia inject themselves with clotting factors to try and stop or prevent bleeding. These clotting factors can be made from human blood (which has been treated to prevent the spread of diseases) or they can be recombinant clotting factor which are made without the use of blood. If the person's immune system attacks the clotting factors, additional treatment is necessary. This can consist of larger doses of clotting factors or different types. Another potential side effect is getting viruses from the treatment.

Sources:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/hemophilia/hemophilia_treatments.html

http://www.hemophilia.org/NHFWeb/MainPgs/MainNHF.aspx?menuid=2&contentid=5&rptname=bleeding

http://www.ygyh.org