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Sickle cell disease usually requires lifelong treatment.
Children and adults with sickle cell disease are supported by a team of different healthcare professionals working together at a specialist sickle cell centre.
Your healthcare team will help you learn more about sickle cell disease, and work with you to come up with an individual care plan that takes into account all your needs and health concerns.
The main thing you can do to reduce your chances of experiencing a painful episode (sickle cell crisis) is to try avoiding possible triggers.
You may be advised to:
If you continue to have episodes of pain, a medicine called hydroxycarbamide (hydroxyurea) may be recommended. You usually take it as a capsule once a day.
Hydroxycarbamide can lower the amount of other blood cells, such as white blood cells and platelets (clotting cells), so you'll usually have regular blood tests to monitor your health.
If you have a sickle cell crisis, you can usually manage it at home.
The following things can help:
Contact your GP if these measures do not work or the pain is particularly severe. If this is not possible, go to your local A&E.
You may need treatment with very strong painkillers, such as morphine, in hospital for a few days.
People with sickle cell disease are more vulnerable to infections.
Most people need to take a daily dose of antibiotics, usually penicillin, often for the rest of their life.
Long-term use of antibiotics will not pose any serious risks to your health.
Children with sickle cell disease should also have all the routine vaccinations, and possibly also additional vaccinations like the annual flu vaccine and the hepatitis B vaccine.
Anaemia often causes few symptoms and may not require specific treatment.
But dietary supplements like folic acid, which helps stimulate the production of red blood cells, may sometimes be required to help improve anaemia if your child has a restricted diet, such as a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Anaemia caused by sickle cell disease is not the same as the more common iron deficiency anaemia.
Do not take iron supplements to treat it without seeking medical advice, as they could be dangerous.
If anaemia is particularly severe or persistent, treatment with blood transfusions or hydroxycarbamide may be necessary.
Stem cell or bone marrow transplants are the only cure for sickle cell disease, but they're not done very often because of the significant risks involved.
Stem cells are special cells produced by bone marrow, a spongy tissue found in the centre of some bones. They can turn into different types of blood cells.
For a stem cell transplant, stem cells from a healthy donor are given through a drip into a vein.
These cells then start to produce healthy red blood cells to replace the sickle cells.
A stem cell transplant is an intensive treatment that carries a number of risks.
The main risk is graft versus host disease, a life-threatening problem where the transplanted cells start to attack the other cells in your body.
Stem cell transplants are generally only considered in children with sickle cell disease who have severe symptoms that have not responded to other treatments, when the long-term benefits of a transplant are thought to outweigh the possible risks.
Sickle cell disease can also cause a number of other problems that may need to be treated.
For example:
People who need a lot of blood transfusions may also need to take medicine called chelation therapy. This reduces the amount of iron in their blood to safe levels.
