Alternative therapy for sickle cell disease

Sickle cell disease can lead to serious complications, such as stroke, acute chest syndrome, pulmonary hypertension, organ damage, blindness, skin ulcers, gallstones and priapism. Additionally, patients with sickle cell disease usually have several pain crises during the year, which means they have to be admitted to the hospital a couple days or weeks in order to treat these crises by pain relievers through IV line or veins. This necessitates quite often that the patient would be absent from their jobs or schools. Frequent absences may cause people with sickle cell disease to experience stress which in turn leads to a higher incidence of pain crises. Therefore, people with sickle cell disease should have awareness about possible supplements that can decrease the numbers of pain crises during the year, so they can live their lives like their peers with less pain and complications. The purpose of this study is to review the options for pain relief available for people with sickle cell disease. Specifically, this paper will review and summarize the literature related to the relationship between both nutrition supplements and phytomedicine and their potential to alter the number and severity of crises events that occur in a year