Hemophilia Symptoms and Treatment

Hemophilia is a rare blood disorder which causes excessive bleeding. A person suffering with this disorder has low clotting factor a protein that helps in clotting blood. A person suffering from this bleeding disorder takes a longer time to clot a wound or injury than a normal person. Hemophilia is an inherited disorder; it commonly affects males than females.

* People with this disorder have low number of or no clotting factors in their blood stream. Clotting factors are proteins that help the platelets stick together so as to stop the bleeding. There are two types of hemophilia- hemophilia A and hemophilia B; those suffering from this disorder mostly develop hemophilia A.

The severity of this disorder depends on the amount of clotting factor in the blood; less the count of this protein in the blood stream the more sever is the bleeding. Hemophilia can also be developed later in life this type is known as acquired hemophilia. In rare cases women can develop this disorder, this happens right after birth of a child or later in life in middle or old age.

Women may also develop this disorder if suffering from heavy bleeding during their menstrual cycle. The risk of developing acquire hemophilia may develop if a woman is going through pregnancy.

* Depending on how many clotting factors are present in the blood of those suffering from hemophilia symptoms may range from mild to severe. Excessive bleeding, frequent injuries, bleeding gums, painful and swollen joints, painful muscles and heavy bleeding during a tooth procedure or a surgery can be few symptoms of hemophilia. A series of test will be done if a person is suspected to suffer from hemophilia, if his/her test results are positive then his relatives also need to undergo these test as in most cases this disorder is inherited.

* Hemophilia is treated using replacement therapy in which clotting factors are injected into the blood stream regularly or when bleeding occurs depending on the severity of the disorder, although there might be few complications like immune system starting to attack the clotting factors or developing an infection if the clotting factors are not treated properly before reaching the blood stream. The joints and muscles can be damaged due to this treatment. But, the treatment can help reduce the symptoms of hemophilia.