Beta Thalassemia Minor and paternity

[Kristie in Florida]

I have beta Thalassemia minor. It is apparently hereditary (or genetic, I get those terms confused). My birth mother says that she does not have it. The man on my birth certificate who I grew up thinking was my father apparently doesn't have it. Long story short, he is trying to say that I'm not his. My birth mother insists that he is lying.

 

I can't afford a paternity test, my father and step mother aren't replying to my messages, and there is a lot of other things going on in this very personal situation that I'm dealing with. This is the easy question to ask.

 

I tried to google how people get beta Thalassemia minor and I was just getting confused. Apparently it is a mutated gene. Does anybody know if that means that something silly happened when my cells were getting the party started or did my birth father give me the trait? If this low life truly isn't my birth father it would help to put a lot of other things into perspective.

 

I know that if my husband also carried the trait our children could possibly have a scary blood disorder, and he does not carry the trait.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Kristie in Florida

[rebbyribs]

It's possible that you have a new mutation, but it's more likely that you inherited a mutant copy of the gene from one of your birth parents.  Are they both saying that they have been tested and are sure they are not carriers?  Or are they saying that they've never been told they have Beta Thalassemia, so it must have come from some other source?  In the latter case, it's possible that one (or both) of them has Beta Thalassemia minor but is asymptomatic and does not realize that they have it.  

[Kristie in Florida]

They aren't anemic and it never came up. My mother had seven children so I assume there was plenty of time for it to come up, and my father was in the army. My husband thinks that since my father was in the army he would have been checked for anemia.

 

So I guess one could carry the trait but not be anemic like I am.

[Arcadia]

My girlfriend has thalassemia minor and G6PD. Her husband does not. She has three children and they are G6PD but luckily none are thalassemia minor. Her kids were tested when newborn.

[KungFuPanda]

Can you just test yourself or the kids to clarify your medical situation but avoid family drama?

[foxbridgeacademy]

A word about Paternity testing.....

I'd ask him to prove he's not your father and use a cheap over the counter (CVS and Walgreens sells them) testing kit.  They can cost as little as $30 for the kit and less than $100 for the lab fee (you can find them even cheaper than that ).  You send the test strips off to a lab and in a few weeks get the results.

[Catherine]

Paternity testing is the surest way to get answers to your questions.  Beta thalassemia can be caused by hundreds of different potential gene mutations so may look very different from one person to the next.  There is a high likelihood that if your biological father also has it, he has not been diagnosed.  Women with thalassemia are more often diagnosed because they are tested more frequently for anemia during pregnancy.  So his claim that he does not have it could me he is lying, or that he is not your father, or that he has it and hasn't been diagnosed.  

 

Sorry. That doesn't make things any easier for you, I realize, OP.  

[Kristie in Florida]

Okay so in this case, I most likely can't determine paternity.

 

I was hoping for an easy solution. I'm in Florida, he is in Maine, (and not answering me) so I can't just run by his house with a test.

 

Sigh. I have a question related to this that I have to ask as soon as I figure out how to ask it.

[maize]

You might learn something by testing with one of the companies that does DNA genealogy. Ancestry.com and FamilyTreeDNA both offer kits for under $100. People who were adopted sometimes use these services to connect with genetic relatives.

 

Wouldn't answer your paternity question directly unless your dad also tested, but might get you in touch with other relatives? You can also get se health-related data out of the tests.

[Kristie in Florida]

You might learn something by testing with one of the companies that does DNA genealogy. Ancestry.com and FamilyTreeDNA both offer kits for under $100. People who were adopted sometimes use these services to connect with genetic relatives.

 

Wouldn't answer your paternity question directly unless your dad also tested, but might get you in touch with other relatives? You can also get se health-related data out of the tests.

I think I like this idea the most.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Have you sat down with your doctor or asked for a referral to a genetics specialist to discuss this?  It sounds like you don't have a full handle on how this is passed down.  You've jumped to conclusions about your paternity (and it sounds like you have some other baggage there contributing).  I would find out the medical science first. 

[Ailaena]

I forgot to quote Jean. So what she said, too. ;)

 

Is the only reason you're asking this because you want to determine paternity? Because a paternity test would be the only certain way. Why does it matter at this point in your life? (Answer that question with your therapist/clergy/husband/cat, not us)

 

Although spontaneous mutations are not unheard of, they are quite rare, so Beta thalassemia is almost always inherited. However, people who have the mutation may never exhibit any symptoms. As in, even the army wouldn't have noticed because they don't do genetic testing (or they didn't at the time, don't know if they do now).

 

Unless she has had her own genetic testing done, your mother could even have it, and only passed it to you. That's the funny thing about probability.

 

(Just noticed I said the exact same thing as rebbyribs, so we must be right :p)

Edited December 1, 2015 by Ailaena

[Kristie in Florida]

Thanks everyone. I was just looking for the easy way out of this paternity situation. The email from him stating that he insists my mother is lying was sent years ago and when I saw him last (almost a year ago) he never brought it up. I was laying in bed last night trying not to stress and wondering about the behavior of my step mother on Facebook towards my sister and wondered if I was essentially ignored because deep down they don't think I'm theirs. This is another situation (with lots of baggage, yes) that I'm unsure if I want to discuss here.

 

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't affect me on a daily basis at all, the fact that I have thalassemia only makes me a little anemic. My doctor made it sound like I obviously had to have gotten it from a parent and she was suprised that I didn't have Asian or Mediterranean descent.

 

Perhaps maybe I do, way up in my line? Only a DNA test will tell at this moment and at this point it may be something that I can see about in the future.