Hello everyone!
We are the parents of Mohanish. He is our darling son aged 1 yr 8months. He has been detected for a year now and has received 16 transfusions so far. We are basically from Bombay,India, but currently in Guangzhou,PRC. We are under the treatment of Dr.Chunfu Li in Nanfang Hospital. Mohanish's serum ferritin is 1472.2ng/ml and we will initiate the iron chelation with Desferral soon. It is indeed good to be a part of this group and know about all your experiences. We hope that the procedure is not as tough on all of us as it seems to be. We almost detest reading about the experiences of the young ones as it may make us lose our strength and will. But then I guess we do draw it from some invisible and probably magical source anyhow! We are looking at bone marrow transplant in the near future as an option for treatment and will keep you all posted about it too.
Thanks for being here for each other and may we all get strength.
Manoj and Madhavi
Hello Manoj and Madhavi,
Welcome to the site. You would definately benifit from the tons of information here shared by Thals and would also get answers to common questions that pop out from new parents of thals
Could you share with us - How did Mohanish get diagonised? What were Mohanish's Hb levels?
There is Dr. Agrawal - a very well known Thalassemia doctor in Mumbai and you should try to get an appointment with him and see what he can point you to.
Iron ChelationFor Iron Chelation, Combination Therapy (Desferal and Kelfer) would be the optimum treatment for Mohanish. Also, Kelfer is well known for removing Iron from the heart. Also, it is available in oral (tablet) form. In India, Kelfer is available, so you might want to consider that option too. A newer drug named Exjade(which too is an oral tablet) is NOT yet in the market in India, but we hope it comes up soon
Bone Marrow TransplantThere have been numerous cases of successful Bone Marrow Transplants, so that sure is a good option. Does Mohanish have a sibling? Did you get their HLA match up done?
With optimal treatment, Thal is a manageable condition and NOT as bad as it once was. Patients are living in their 50s these days and with medical advancement, we hope they will live even longer
Awareness in Family Also, you want to be aware that your siblings and your wife's siblings might be silent carrier of Thalassemia, so it would be a good idea to get them screened or atleast make them aware, so they can plan for their kids accordingly