Hello, my name is Dorothee, I am french. My daughter is called Clara, She is 10 years old, Her father is African (Gambia), but has hardly ever been there in her life.
We live in Portsmouth and lived in France before.
Clara grew "very quickly" recently, she is even more developed than some of the pupils in her class.
For about 10 months she has knee pain, and also in the shoulder .. I thought is was because of the growth .. then she started to drink much more water than usual so I was thinking of diabetes probs and then I ask a doctor if we could do a blood tests and search for diabetes because it is a problem that is known in my family and her father's etc.
..
The results came back few weeks ago and she did not have diabetes but sickle cells.
The doctor called me to do another blood test.which she had done 2 weeks ago..we only had the results today,and they told us that she has the sickle cell trait,and that she's just a carrier..so now there's nothing to worry about and she can live her life as normal.. the only prob she might have is if one day she wants to have a child with someone with sickle cell trait..
However while we were waiting for those blood test results,Clara had some breathing problems at home,at school.,
We had to see the doctor 3 times within the last 10 days because she's complaining about having a pain in her lungs..
We saw the 3 doctors of in our doctor surgery..
One of them told us that it was an inflammation of the joint between her lungs and her ribs,another told us it could be the same thing and maybe sleep apnea and today as she was complaining about it again while the doctor was giving us her result,I asked the doctor if it could be because of the sickle cell trait and she answered no,that some patient with sickle cell disease or anaemia might have sickle lungs but not in Clara's case as she's only a carrier..
She must take paracetamol and Ibuprofen if in pain..and drink lots of water.
Should I worry about all these pain,is it just the lungs inflammation,and the fact that she's growing up..Is there anything I could do..
Also,I've read things about a card if you're a carrier etc..what is it?