   
 |
|
 Ask Dr. Jana
Child with Sickle Cell Anemia Suffering from Frequent Colds | | | QUESTION | | | Dear Dr. Jana,
My child has sickle cell anemia. She gets sick very often and always gets colds even when no one around her has a cold and the fans are not on. It also takes a long time for her to get over one cold, often more than three weeks. Her eyes are always yellow even when she drinks eight to nine bottles of water every day. May you please give me some answers and advice on the situation?— Frustrated Mom and Daughter in Miami | | | ANSWER |
April 26, 2001 | | | Dear Frustrated Mom and Daughter,
Thank you for writing to us. As you may know, we have a comprehensive program on sickle cell anemia on our website and recently coproduced a television special on the disease with the Discovery Health Channel. These resources contain a good deal of information on sickle cell disease that you might find of interest. I also consulted with Dr. Lewis Hsu, co-director of Pediatric Sickle Cell Service at the Georgia Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, to help address your specific concerns.
Dr. Hsu and I are not surprised that your daughter gets sick often. Children with sickle cell disease have a hard time fighting off certain infections, some of which can be life threatening. For this reason, doctors generally keep children with most types of sickle cell disease on preventive antibiotics (such as penicillin twice a day), and have them come in for medical care whenever they have a fever. If your daughter isn't on preventive antibiotics, you might want to discuss this with your child's healthcare provider.
Other than these special points, however, children with sickle cell catch the same colds that other children do. If a child is taking a long time to recover, it is always important to consider if she has an additional problem, such as asthma, allergies, or exposure to tobacco smoke, which could aggravate her sickle cell disease. Treating these problems may help ease her symptoms, so you should be sure to discuss your child's specific situation with her healthcare provider.
As far as the yellow color of your daughter's eyes is concerned, this condition is called scleral icterus and has the same underlying cause as jaundice of the skin. It is very common in children with sickle cell disease. The yellow color is from a pigment called bilirubin that is a chemical made as the body processes the sickle hemoglobin from broken red blood cells. The faster the sickle red blood cells are broken down, the more bilirubin gets made and the more yellow a child's eyes will appear. Drinking more water can help the body get rid of bilirubin in the urine and subsequently alleviates some of the yellow color. However, these measures may only be able to lighten the jaundice color, not get rid of it completely.
Taking folic acid daily can help slow down the red blood cell breakdown rate a little bit but may not remove the jaundice color.
We hope this answers your questions and invite you to visit our website for more information on sickle cell disease. Best of luck to you and your daughter.— by Laura Jana, M.D., F.A.A.P. |
|
| | 
|