Possible Thal Minor w/ No Symptoms.. how important is testing?

Hello all, I'm new here and I would like some feedback from some of you who are much more experienced than I.   My wife is a Thalassemia carrier and she has very minor symptoms that started with the birth of our first child  (I am not a carrier).  These are occiasional migranes and then smaller headaches.  Whether nor not these are Thal related, I'm not sure but that's the extent of her symptoms.

We have 2 kids, a 12 year old with Type 1 diabetes and a 3 1/2 year old that for all intents and purposes seems very healthy.  We just had a visit to our local pediatrician and our kids hemoglobin test came back at 11.4 for our 12 year old and 8.9 and 9.6 (she took it twice) for our 3 year old.

Now here is our dilemma, our ped is asking us to get more extensive testing for both of our kids.  And while both my wife and I recognize that our kids could be Thalassemia carriers, we are hesistant to continually prick them with needles when they are active, have full color, eat and sleep well and from all appearances seem very healthy.

So my question to you is, should we go get our kids tested?  Is childhood identification that important if no symptoms are present?   If so, could you let me know why?

Thank so much

Hi belacyrf,

The Hb of the younger is low. I would suggest testing both for thal minor. The 12 year old has diabetes and thal minor can give falsely high HbA1c tests, so this should be investigated to make sure that this is taken into account when doing the HbA1c test, if necessary. Also, because they both do need to know if they are carriers for later in life when they choose to have kids, testing is essential.

Thanks for that...  I totally understand testing when the kids are a bit older due to the possible ramifications when having a child, but can you let me know what benefits of testing a 3 yr old now will have even though they seem very healthy?  I'm not a fan of poking and prodding small children unless there is an immediate or long-term benefit to do so.

Oh and great info on the A1C, thanks for that, his A1C is higher than we'd like, though still in a good range.

The benefit would be in explaining the anemia before well intended but uninformed doctors recommend iron for a non-iron deficiency anemia. With an Hb under 10, this is sure to happen so solving the reason for the low Hb is necessary.