I don't know; it was doctors advice to keep Hb level above 7. I will ask him to keep Hb level above 8.0 atleast.
In fact, my son was scheduled to go through Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT). I would like to share my bitter experience of deciding to go for the BMT of my son which is the only cure for such blood disorders as thals and the blood disease my son is suffering from.
BMT procedure was tried twice; once when my son was just 9 months old and the recent attempt was in last month (July 2014). Both attempts went wrong even in the initial stages of BMT. In first attempt the Hickman line was inserted on left side of the chest which was infected due to unknown reasons and after two weeks of insertion of the line it was decided to abort the procedure and Hickman line was removed after two weeks. The second time we went through a very traumatic situation. On the advice of doctor, we took the hard decision to make another attempt for BMT. Before BMT procedure, some blood tests took place. All tests were within their normal limits except SGPT and Ferriten (SGPT = 75 & Ferriten = 2500). There was tendency of SGPT level being raised with medication such as Asunra and Antibiotics. It went above 900 when we were using Asunra and some antibiotics whenever any infection occurred. I am not a doctor, even as a layman I had some apprehensions which I shared with the doctor. I asked doctor as the intense medication in the form of chemotherapy and other heavy doses of medication, which will be used in the BMT procedure, may cause liver problem. I told him that the SGPT level will certainly be raised with such intensive medication for a long time. But the doctor suggested to go with BMT, he told me that they will cope with the situation if such a scenario arises. I thought there might be some solution available with the doctors to keep SGPT level down during the BMT procedure. As soon as the initial protocol for BMT procedure started, the SGPT level went above 100. It reached 117 and the procedure was immediately stopped. The SGPT was monitored for few more days but it did not came down the level of 100. The doctor called me to meet him in his office. When I met him, he informed me about the problem and told me that under prevailing circumstances, if we go ahead with BMT procedure, there is possibility of developing VOD disease in which liver failure may occur and there are 75% chances that we may loose the child. I asked the doctor that you were aware of the fact that there are higher chances of rising level of SGPT while using intensive doses of chemotherapy etc. But the doctor had no answer to my questions.
After going through another failed attempt of BMT, the procedure was aborted after 12 days of admission at the hospital. I don't know why doctors don't care about the sentiments of parents who are already going through a very difficult situations to handle children who are suffering from life threatening diseases.