A paediatrician at the 37 Military Hospital says one of the unfortunate crises sickle cell male patients experience is a sustained erection which does not result from feeling aroused by a woman.

According to her, this condition is termed “Priapism”.

“One of the common complications of sickle cell patients is what we call Priapism and it is a sustained, painful erection.”

“So they’ll be there and they’ll have an erection, so sustained, so painful and it’s not aroused by seeing a woman or anything, it’s just a complication of sickle cell,” she said.

Dr Asamoah-Okyere explained that when this prolonged erection keeps happening as a complication of sickle cell, it can lead to infertility hence patients should quickly rush to the hospital once they start experiencing this.

“Immediately when they get that, adequate hydration, pain medication, sometimes you can do cold compress on the penis and you immediately have to run to the nearby hospital for the necessary intervention to be done.”

“It shouldn’t stay more than four hours, once it has started, within 15 to 20 minutes you should seek help because if you leave it that can lead to infertility,” she indicated.

However, she assured that with the modern Hydroxyurea medicine, patients with sickle cell disease can have some peace with better management of the disease and its crisis.

Even though the medicine does not cure sickle-cell disease, patients are better and may live longer.

This medicine she said produces more baby haemoglobin (fetal haemoglobin) which is more dominant in the first six months of a child.

This haemoglobin is stronger, healthier and pulls more oxygen to itself hence it is able to mask or shield the symptoms of sickle cell and minimize the crisis as well.

She encouraged all patients to jump on this programme for better treatment and management of sickle cell disease.

“The Hydroxyurea has come to give peace to sickle-cell patients and their parents, we encourage parents to enrol on the Hydroxyrea programme, it’s even on the Nation Health Insurance Scheme,” she assured.

Sickle cell disease is a genetic disorder where an individual inherits two abnormal haemoglobin genes, one from each parent.

This disease causes their red blood cells to regularly break down resulting in frequent crises.