Other common symptoms include abnormal bruising and pains all over body, fatigue, paleness, rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, jaundice of your eyes and skin, problems with thinking, small strokes and ulcers. There are also some very serious symptoms that develop over time: the spleen stops working, bone infections, gall bladder infections, lung infections, and urinary tract infections. Most of these symptoms do not occur in a patient until after the age of 4 months. Patients with sickle cell often have painful episodes called crises which most of the time require hospitalization and can last from hours to days to weeks. These crises occur when the stiff inflexible oddly shaped blood cells get caught in small blood vessels. These episodes or crises can lead to major organ damage in the lungs, kidneys, spleen and the brain. Also pulmonary hypertension can occur in a patient with sickle cell disease. Pulmonary hypertension is when you have high blood pressure in your blood vessels that supply your lungs, this can cause and lead to heart failure. Another common symptom is Anemia. Anemia causes shortness of breath, fatigue and delayed growth and development for children. This is why most people call sickle cell disease sickle cell anemia. Sickle cell disease also causes chronic organ damage which can result in a deadly outcome. A study shows a large amount of evidence indicating that sickle cell disease causes depressions, other disorders, and sleep disturbance. The study shows that 44% of adults with sickle cell disease have depression. The people involved with the study say that depression in SCD is associated with daily pain, lower quality of life, and poor adherence to treatments. Children with SCD will most likely develop sleep disturbances or sleep apnea. Studies also show that 71% of adults with sickle cell have sleep disturbances and one in five have depression. The severity of sickle cell disease varies from person to person, but most of the time sickle cell can lead to a fatal outcome.
