Hemophilia

It’s normal to bleed briefly after an injury, but in hemophilia, the bleeding continues for a longer time than normal and leads to many other problems.

Hemophilia

Hemophilia is a blood disorder that makes it not clot normally after bleedings due to the lack of clotting factors.

Hemophilia is a rare disease, and it might be mild, moderate, or severe. It also has three types: hemophilia A, B, and C.

Causes of hemophilia

• Hemophilia is mostly inherited, which occurs due to a mutation in a gene that’s responsible for forming some clotting factors. Hemophilia occurs mainly in males, but some females could have it. The reason is that we inherit a couple of chromosomes from the parents, and when this couple is X from the mother and X from the father, the sex is female, while if it’s X from the mother and Y from the father, the sex is male. The disease is on the chromosome X, and in case the sex is female, then the infant has a couple of the chromosome X; one of them is healthy and the other is sick; therefore, she won’t have hemophilia. On the other hand, if the sex is male, then the infant has a single sick X chromosome with one Y chromosome; therefore, he will have hemophilia.
• In some cases, hemophilia might occur without a genetic cause because the immune system might attack the clotting factors, and that might be associated with some conditions, such as cancer, pregnancy, multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease, or a reaction to some drugs.

Symptoms of hemophilia

• Severe and unexplained bleeding from cuts, after surgeries, or after dental procedures.
• Numerous large bruises.
• Spontaneous bleedings without a reason, such as spontaneous nosebleeds.
• Pain and swelling in the joints because of the bleeding in them.
• Blood in the urine or stool.
• Brain bleeding, which causes persistent headaches, double vision, frequent vomiting, sleepiness, weakness, lethargy, and seizures.
• In infants and children, hemophilia might cause, in addition to bleedings, swollen lumps in the head, fussiness and irritation, and hematomas.
• Hemophilia might cause a life-threatening internal bleeding.

Diagnosis of hemophilia

• Blood tests to detect the clotting factors.
• Genetic tests in some cases.

Management of hemophilia

• Hemophilia doesn’t have a cure, and it’s managed by replacing the missing clotting factors in severe cases, while in mild and moderate cases, clotting factors are replaced only when needed (when having surgeries, for example).