Sickle Cell Disease
Sickle Cell Disease
Sickle Cell Disease Living With Sickle Cell Disease
Follow these steps to help relieve symptoms and help you manage your condition at home.
Receive routine follow-up care
- See your doctor regularly. Most people who have sickle cell disease should see their doctor every 3 to 12 months, depending on their age.
- Get regular vaccines, including an influenza or flu shot every year, and the COVID-19 vaccine. Your doctor may also recommend a second pneumococcus (PPSV23), in addition to the pneumococcus one (PCV13) that all children get as part of their regular immunizations. This second vaccine is given after 24 months of age and again 5 years later. Adults who have sickle cell disease and have not received any pneumococcal vaccine should get a dose of the PCV13 vaccine. They should later receive the PPSV23 if they have not already received it or if it has been more than 5 years since they did. Follow these guidelines even if you or your child is still taking penicillin.
Learn what to do in a pain crisis
- When an acute crisis is just starting, drink lots of fluids and take a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) pain medicine, such as ibuprofen. If you have kidney problems, acetaminophen is often preferred.
- If you cannot control the pain at home, go to a sickle cell disease day hospital/outpatient unit or an emergency room to receive additional, stronger medicines and intravenous (IV) fluids. You may be able to return home once your pain is under better control. You may need to be admitted to the hospital to fully control an acute pain crisis.
Adopt a healthy lifestyle
- Get regular physical activity. You may tire easily, so be careful to pace yourself and avoid very strenuous activities.
- Choose heart-healthy foods, including limiting alcohol. Drink extra water to avoid dehydration.
- Quit smoking. Visit Smoking and Your Heart and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Your Guide to a Healthy Heart. Although these resources focus on heart health, they include basic information about how to quit smoking. For free help and support to quit smoking, you can call the National Cancer Institute’s Smoking Quitline at 1-877-44U-QUIT (1-877-448-7848).
Prevent problems over your or your child’s lifetime
- Avoid situations that may set off a crisis. Extreme heat or cold, as well as abrupt changes in temperature, are often triggers. When going swimming, ease into the water rather than jumping right in.
- Do not travel in an aircraft cabin that is unpressurized.
- If you experience priapism (prolonged, painful erection), you may be able to relieve your symptoms by doing light exercise, emptying your bladder by urinating, drinking more fluids, and taking medicine recommended by your doctor.
- If your child attends daycare, preschool, or school, speak to his or her teacher about the disease. Teachers need to know what to watch for and how to accommodate your child.
- Learn how to palpate, or feel, your child’s spleen. Because of the risk of splenic sequestration crisis, caretakers should learn how to palpate a child’s spleen. They should try to feel for the spleen daily and more often when the child is ill. If the spleen feels larger than usual, they should call the care provider.
- Seek help if you have feelings of depression or anxiety. Supportive counseling and, sometimes, antidepressant medicines may help.
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