Living with Sickle Cell Trait and Alpha Thalassemia Trait w/ Valerie Henry & WDC

My guest tonight is Valerie Henry at 
7p PT/10p ET 
 
Do you know some people just don’t know they carry the Alpha Thalassemia trait? 
Imagine it’s you.. 
For more information on Sickle Trait visit WDConSCT.org
Since I’ve been advocating for the last 10 years.. Alpha Thalassemia has been showing up in the conversation as a hidden or silent gene 🧬 not discovered at birth for some and many not until adulthood when health is being impacted. 
Awareness is key. 
Please seek a genetic counselor if you want more information on these traits and if you suspect you could be experiencing health complications seek a hematologist and or ask your Doctor for a Hemoglobin Electrophoresis Test and focus on Thalassemia Traits. 
Alpha thalassemia is common in people of African, Southern Chinese, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean descent.
People with alpha thalassemia trait only have two genes for alpha globin, so they make slightly lower amounts of hemoglobin.
All red blood cells contain hemoglobin, which carries oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the body
Testing for alpha thalassemia trait (alpha thalassemia minor) is usually done by a process of exclusion; people who have low MCV (not due to iron deficiency), a normal hemoglobin electrophoresis, quantitative hemoglo- bin A2 and quantitative hemoglobin F, and are of the appropriate ethnic origin 

https://www.stjude.org/treatment/disease/sickle-cell-disease/diagnosing-sickle-cell/alpha-thalassemia-trait.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4394356/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740187/