She suffered from breathing issues, as well as jaundice, a condition that can cause yellowing of the eyes or skin due to the build-up of yellow-tinted bilirubin in the blood. Porter, now age 27, spent her childhood enduring the physical and emotional challenges that resulted from the disease. Anemia can cause fatigue, weakness and dizziness. SCD can result in sickle cell anemia: a condition where the body does not have enough healthy red blood cells - and thus, oxygen - throughout the body. Because of their shape, sickled cells can get stuck in blood vessels, creating blood flow restriction that can cause intense pain that SCD patients call a “sickle cell crisis.” These sickled cells have a much shorter life span than healthy, round red blood cells and are ineffective in supplying the body with oxygen. This abnormality causes red blood cells to contort into a “sickled” crescent shape. Life with sickle cell diseaseīecause of genetics, people with SCD have abnormal hemoglobin, which is the protein in red blood cells responsible for carrying oxygen. Porter participated in a stem cell gene therapy clinical trial at UChicago Medicine that provided important evidence in favor of this promising new treatment approach. However, new therapies are emerging that could offer hope to SCD patients. As a newborn, Porter was diagnosed with sickle cell disease (SCD), a life-threatening blood disorder affecting a person’s red blood cells, including their shape, function and ability to carry oxygen throughout the body.įor many years, this diagnosis often meant a lifetime of medical complications and struggles to find curative treatment. Lyric Porter has been a patient at the University of Chicago Medical Center since the day she was born.
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