Here's a helpful rundown on the rare but serious health conditions known as bleeding disorders.
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Usually after an injury, our blood will clot to stop any bleeding. But for someone who has a bleeding disorder, the clotting process is more difficult. There can be a risk of excessive bleeding, spontaneous bleeding in the muscles or joints, and other more serious complications.
Blood clots are clumps of blood that form naturally in the body in response to injury. Blood-clotting factors, also called coagulation factors, are proteins in the blood that work together to help form these blood clots.
Tiny cells in the blood called platelets then stick together around a wound and form a “platelet plug” to patch the injury. The platelets release chemicals to form fibrin, which acts like a super tightly woven fabric, like mesh, to stop the bleeding and form the blood clot (also known as a fibrin clot).2
An injury happens
The blood vessel shrinks so that less blood will leak out
Primary Hemostasis
Von Willebrand factor (VWF) binds to site
Platelets bind to VWF
Formation of platelet plug
Secondary Hemostasis
Clotting cascade with FVIII and other clotting factors are activated sequentially
Fibrin clot formation to stop bleeding
Bleeding disorders are caused by missing or deficient blood clotting factors.4
Since there are multiple factors along the coagulation cascade, various factor deficiencies are possible, each of which can cause a particular bleeding disorder.2
Clotting factors are designated by Roman numerals I through XIII.2
There are many types of factor deficiencies but the most common among these rare diseases are2:
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