Essay On Hemochromatosis

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The People that could be Considered Iron People
One in every two hundred people with Northern European ancestors are affected with hemochromatosis (Fletcher and Halliday 182). This is one of the most common blood disorders in the United States, and one in every eight to twelve white Americans is a carrier of this disease ("Hemochromatosis,” Cleveland 3). You or someone you know may be a carrier of hemochromatosis. My mom has hemochromatosis. She was diagnosed with the disease in 2007. She had many problems, including joint pains, being tired, and fatigued. Her doctors diagnosed it as many different diseases until a blood sample was taken. It showed that her iron levels were double what they were supposed to be. So my family gave her the nickname, iron women. Hemochromatosis is a common disease, but it has effects on a person’s organs, body, and life. Hemochromatosis is a disease …show more content…

The different types include: juvenile, neonatal, and secondary. Juvenile hemochromatosis occurs at a much younger age before or during puberty. This disease has many of the same effects as hereditary hemochromatosis, but juvenile affects different hepcidin genes. This is a hormone produced and controlled by the liver (Mayo, “Symptoms” 4). Another type of hemochromatosis is neonatal hemochromatosis. This type occurs to a fetus while it is still in the mother’s womb. The iron builds up in the liver over the final days of pregnancy (4). This disease progresses at an extreme rate, and a few days after birth the liver will start to shut down and fail. The only treatment for this disease is a liver treatment and there is only a fifty percent survival rate (Machtei et al 1). Another type that is not inherited is secondary hemochromatosis. This type is caused by having too many blood transfusions cause too much iron to be stored in a person’s system (Mayo, “Symptoms”

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