This destination is produced by the Sickle Cell Information Center, P.O. Box 109
Grady Memorial Hospital 80 Butler Street --Atlanta, GA 30335. Sickle cell anemia is an inherited condition. You can not catch it. You are born with the sickle cell hemoglobin and it is present for life. As the site suggests, normal red blood cells are round like doughnuts, and they move through small blood vessels in the body to deliver oxygen. Sickle red blood cells become hard, sticky and shaped like sickles. When these hard and pointed red cells go through the small blood vessels, they clog the flow and break apart. This can cause pain, damage and a low blood count, or anemia.
This destination is produced by the National Institute on Aging, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health. A stroke is a sudden partial loss of brain function usually caused by a clot that stops the flow of blood to an area of the brain. Without oxygen and important nutrients, the affected brain cells are either damaged or die within a few minutes. This site discusses this serious problem.
This destination is produced by the National Hemophilia Foundation, 116 West 32nd Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 1000. A bleeding disorder is a flaw in the body's blood clotting system. Blood clotting is the process that controls bleeding by changing blood from a liquid to a solid state. As this site suggests, the most common bleeding disorder, thought to affect about 1% of the population is von Willebrand disease, which is caused by a defect in or deficiency of von Willebrand factor.
