ATLANTA — When Atlanta resident Blaze Eppinger has a sickle cell pain crisis bad enough to need emergency room care, he sometimes has to wait hours for treatment.
That's despite 2014 guidelines from the National Institutes of Health that state medical personnel should "rapidly initiate analgesic therapy within 30 minutes of triage or within 60 minutes of registration."
Sickle cell gets its name from the way some of a victim's red blood cells are shaped like crescent moons, or sickles, instead of being round. The rigid, sticky sickle cells become stuck in small blood vessels, slowing or blocking blood flow and oxygen, and causing pain in the chest, joints and bones.
