How to prepare for knee surgery with a rare porphyria

Life’s like a pickup basketball game — you never know when a twist or turn might change everything. That’s the lesson we learned a couple of weeks ago with my son Brady, a freshman at Syracuse University who navigates life with erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP), a rare condition that’s always…

Porphyria and Anesthesia

Porphyria is the name given a group of rare genetic disorders that result in a buildup of porphyrins and a lack of heme, a protein necessary for the production of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. Anesthesia…