Bleeding Disorders: Hemophilia

Hemophilia is a bleeding disorder that is rare and leads to not enough clotting factor VIII and IX. Factor VIII is known as hemophilia A and IX is known as hemophilia B. The clotting process is screwed up with the lack of factors VIII and IX causing a person to not form blood clots when needed or they cannot stop bleeding when they are injured. When bleeding cannot be stopped the person can bleed into their joints, muscles and soft tissue without the clotting factors. A normal cut or scrape for a normal person is not a problem, for someone with hemophilia this is a big concern. A normal cut or scrape can lead to bleeding in the head, abdomen, kidneys, intestines and major joints and muscle groups can be life threatening.
There are two types
of hemophilia, type A (factor VII) and type B (factor IX) this is also called Christmas disease. Both of these are considered rare diseases that affect 200,000 people or less in the United States. Hemophilia A is the most common hemophilia, it occurs in one in five thousand males and affects about 25,000 people in the United States. Hemophilia B is the second most common type of hemophilia. Hemophilia B occurs in one in 25,000 males and only affects about 3,300 people in the United States. Hemophilia is classified as moderate or severe depending on the amount of the clotting factor in the blood. Normal range is 50% to 150%.