Genotype Incompatibility And It Consequences, An Enemy Of True Love.

Love is a very beautiful thing, it involves a lot of sacrifices, cares and commitments. Imagine the feeling you get when you are in love with someone you feel is the right person, everything seems perfect, the whole world is still for a while, everything seems perfect about you and your partner then you are willing to take certain risk just because you feel you can't do without them, love suddenly becomes blind, things that we are supposed to take note of, we ignore them all because of how beautiful love is, we forget the possible consequence of our actions. As beautiful as love is, there are certain things that must not be neglected take for instance the issue of genotype incompatibility should not be neglected for the sake of the possible future consequence. Genotype incompatibility between lovers could lead to giving birth to children with sickle cell disease.

Sickle cell disease is an inherited group of disorder typically inherited from a person's parents. Sickle cell disease is found mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and some part of south east Asia. it is an hemoglobinopathy that is, a disease of hemoglobin component of red blood cells. Hemoglobin is made up of heme and globin, globin is basically chains (alpha and beta) of amino acids sequence, the 6th position of the beta chain of the globin is where the defects lies, there is substitution of glutamate for valine which makes the red blood cells to sickle whenever it undergo oxidative stress (a decrease level of oxygen). There are homozygous and heterozygous sickle cell anemia. when a patient is homozygous it means the patient is SS (sickle cell disease) while when a patient is heterozygous the patient is AS and he is a carrier (inherited a copy of the sickle hemoglobin), when two carriers get married to each other, there are high chances that some of their children will inherit two (2) copies of the sickle hemoglobin; homozygous sickle cell anemia (SS).

Sickle cell patients are however normal human being, they only manifest the symptoms of illness when they are in crises.

SYMPTOMS

• Features of infections

• Vaso-oclusive crisis and/or acute chest syndrome characterized by pains in the bones, joint, chest.

• Enlargement of the spleen

• Leg ulcer

• Kidney dysfunction

• stroke

• Heart dysfunction

• Stunted growth

• Slender extremities

• Priapism

• fatigue

• dizziness

• jaundice

• shortness of breath

• pale skin

• hypoxemia or hypoxia

PREVENTION

Prevention follows primary, secondary, and tertiary modalities

1. Primary prevention means prevention done before the disease which include; health education to the masses, teaching the young unmarried people things like genotyping in their premarital agenda, the economic and emotional implication of taking care of a sickle cell anemia patient.

2. Secondary prevention is early detection and prompt treatment of the disease which can be achieved by encouraging hospital visits rather than self medication or checking the internet for your symptoms practiced by majority of individuals today.

3. Tertiary prevention is the rehabilitation of affected individuals and managing the various complications of sickle cell anemia.

TREATMENT OF SICKLE CELL ANEMIA;

The principle of management of sickle cell anemia patients include

1. Rehydration

2. Blood transfusion

3. Antibiotics (following blood investigation findings)

4. analgesics

5. Bone marrow transplant

CONCLUSION

In conclusion the best approach to the management and prevention of sickle cell anemia is via the primary prevention method. Definite cure for sickle cell anemia is bone marrow transplant done very early in life.

Pain is a defining feature of Sickle cell disease with patients experiencing unpredictable recurrent, persistent pain throughout life resulting in frequent hospitalizations and patients have lower life span.

Indeed, love is very beautiful when you find one but don't let it blind you away from the things that call for importance. If you're a sickle cell patient, you probably will not understand what they go through in life and you really need to be grateful. If you have seen any of them in crisis, you would probably agree that they go through hell. No amount of love worth the pain of a sickle cell patient when he/she is in crisis. So, don't trade love with the health your born children. Please ensure you know the genotype status of your partner before saying "I do or I will marry you to them."