5 years after transplant
Nia is 19
5 years after transplant
Nia is 19
Today is Nia’s 19th birthday! She attends college a few hours away from home and wants to be a music teacher. Her follow up visits are every 6 months. She has not had a pain crisis in 5 years.
Your experience may be different from Nia.
The goal of bone marrow transplant is to cure sickle cell disease.
If it works:
- You will be cured.
- You will have less pain.
- You can stop sickle cell disease medicine (example: Hydroxyurea).
- You will not need more blood transfusions for sickle cell disease.
- You will not get new organ damage from sickle cell disease, but it will not fix any organ damage you have.
- You will not need to go to the hospital as often as before.
You can still have challenges:
- It can take as long as 2 years to feel like you are back to normal.
- Some people can have depression or other mental health challenges.
- You can get new health problems that last a long time.
- You will still have some old medical problems that cannot be cured from bone marrow transplant.
Bone marrow transplant does not work for everyone.
Your doctor can talk to you about the chance of it working for you.
Bone marrow transplant does not fix all your medical problems.
- If sickle cell disease damages your organs, you will still have this damage after bone marrow transplant.
- Your doctor can talk to you about the medicine or treatment you might still need after bone marrow transplant.