If someone had a minor cut on their knee, the bleeding would ordinarily stop within a few minutes. However, the bleeding could continue for hours or even longer for a person with hemophilia. The reason behind this is that people with hemophilia have problems with blood clotting, which stops their blood from clotting as it should. Nevertheless, it is an uncommon condition that affects roughly 1 in 10,000 people globally. In order to avoid issues like arthritis and muscle damage, this condition requires quick attention. But how can doctors figure out whether or not a patient has hemophilia? Are there any treatments that can help people with hemophilia have regular lives?
Diagnosis of Haemophilia
A haemophilia diagnosis starts off with a series of blood tests. Firstly, doctors will check how long it takes for the blood to clot. If the clotting takes too long, they might do a clotting factor assay. The clotting factor assay measures the amount of clotting factors like VIII or IX in the blood. If these levels are lower than normal, it confirms the type and severity of haemophilia.
If the test shows that factor VIII is missing or really low, you have Haemophilia A. What this means is that your body doesn’t have enough Factor VIII to help your blood to clot properly. But if the test shows that factor IX is missing or low, you have Haemophilia B, which is also known as Christmas disease. This means your body is short on factor IX, which is just another protein needed for blood clotting.
Treatment for Haemophilia
Replacement therapy: Replacement therapy is the most common way to treat hemophilia. When someone’s body doesn’t have enough clotting factors like factors VIII or factor IX, doctors give them these missing factors directly through an infusion. An infusion is a process where the clotting factors are delivered directly into the vein using a needle, this helps to stop the bleeding. Basically, these clotting factors can be made from donated human blood or it can be created in a lab which is called recombinant factors.
Prophylactic treatment: This is more like taking a precaution before the problem even starts. For people with severe hemophilia, doctors usually recommend regular infusions of lupine factors, even when they are not bleeding. This is just to protect them at all times, to stop unexpected bleeding from happening during events like sports or even daily activities. Because hemophilia leads to complications like arthritis and muscle damage, this treatment plan helps to prevent long-term damage to joints and muscles.
Desmopressin (DDAVP): DDAVP is a type of medicine used for people with mild hemophilia A. Instead of adding clotting factors, desmopressin helps the body to relieve more of its own clotting factor VIII, from where it is stored. It is usually used through a nasal spray or injection and works well for minor injuries and surgery. However, this method doesn’t work for hemophilia B.
Why? That is because hemophilia B issues are with a completely different clotting protein called factor IX, while hemophilia an issue is as a result of a lack of factor VIII. Factor VIII using DDAVP can be collected from the blood while Factor IX has to be gotten through an infusion of factor IX to replace whatever is missing in the blood.
Conclusion
Haemophilia is a rare condition where people’s blood doesn’t clot the way it should, causing them to bleed longer than usual. Doctors figure out if someone has it by running blood tests to check if certain clotting factors (like Factor VIII or IX) are missing. If they are, the person is diagnosed with haemophilia A or B.
Doctors use treatments like replacement therapy, which gives patients the missing clotting factors, or prophylactic treatment, which gives regular doses of clotting factors to prevent bleeding. Desmopressin can also be used for mild haemophilia A to help the body release its own clotting factors. For emergency bleeding, doctors use on-demand therapy to stop the bleeding quickly.
