Thursday, January 17, 2008

Do you have too much iron in your blood?

You'd probably be surprised if you found out that you do. Most people suffer from an Iron deficiency, however, some people suffer from an Iron Overload instead. This disease is called Hemochromatosis. There are several forms of Hemochromatosis, but the most common is the hereditary form. This means that you inhereted it from both your parents. This also means that you should think some things over when you are thinking of having children of your own. Do you want to take the risk of them having the same disease as you do? Meaning they will have to have life long treatment in the form of phlebotomies? Since you know you have Hemochromatosis, it is rather easy to find out if there is a chance that your children will have it. Just let your partner's DNA be tested for Hemochromatosis, if he/she is clean, there is no chance that your children will have the disease, if he/she is a carrier, there is a chance that your children will get the disease (one needs to have the dna defect from both parents, before the disease develops, otherwise you are just a carrier), if both you and your partner have Hemochromatosis, your child will also have the disease. This does not have to be a problem though. Since you know from the birth, or short after, that your child will develop Hemochromatosis, you act on it, keeping an eye on the ironlevels, and start treatment before any damage is done...

Damage you say? From too much iron?
Yes indeed, too much iron kills you eventually... The overload of iron, which your body cannot use, will remain in your blood. This can only happen as long as your blood still can carry this. When the blood is saturated, the iron will be stocked in different places, such as the joints, the glands, the brains, the liver, ...
It needs no explanation that this is very bad for your organs, and it will lead to death eventually.
Luckily, there is a solution: phlebotomy. With this treatment, the medics take an amount of blood from your body at regular intervals, for me, at this moment, this is 0,5 litres every 2 months. This causes the amount of iron in your body to lower, due to it being removed, and again when your body is creating new blood, since it needs alot of iron to do that.
If your phlebotomy treatment can start before too much damage is done to your organs, your chances of living a normal and long life are still pretty normal.

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