How Much Longer?

[Ceridwen]

I don't think this is a morbid question at all. Its difficult to say how much longer Alexei would have lived but its true that back in the early 20th century hemophiliacs did not have long lifespans.  Most died when they were children to teenagers but a few did live into their 30s and beyond.

[Kalafrana]

I don't find it morbid either. This comes under the heading of 'unhappy reality'.

Two points to follow earlier discussion:
1) Nicholas and Alexandra already allowed Alexei to drive. Pre-war, he had his own scaled-down car. In any case, he was a lively young lad, and something of a daredevil, so in adult life I don't think being told not to drive would have stopped him. He might well have found willing accomplices in his uncle Mikhail and cousin Dimitri Pavlovitch, both of whom were very keen on cars (Dimitri had five!).
2) Even if Alexei had been a quieter person, a quite minor fall could have killed him. From memory, Leopold of Albany fell down some steps, which is common enough. Yesterday morning I slipped on some wet decking, my feet went from under me, and I went down full length on my back. Had I been Alexei, I imagine that would have been quite enough to set off a bleed.

Ann   

[Clemence]

I confess I rarely enter the boards dedicated to Alexei, but then I did a few days ago and I was thinking, what if? Being a doctor specialized in blood tranfusions myself, I was always somehow intrigued by the history behind blood therapy and a trigger point for it was certainly WWI. As a matter of fact, I remembered that the Soviet Union was somehow a pioneer in the field, although I never got the opportunity to find out more on this. So I looked it up and found out that even in the late 20's there have been Soviet doctors experimenting on various aspects of theories and possible treatments (Alexander Bogdanov to name one).
So, Rusputin is getting to be more and more an enigma, the way I see it, because in an alternative scenario, where the Revolution does not take place, or it does but the Tsar is non overthroned or anyway not killed with all the family, maybe a young Alexei would have the opportunity to be treated somehow. Of course he could also die as a consequence, since there were many factors, blood groups and compatibility issues that were not understood back then (Bogdanov's tragic end could be attributed to such an accident) - but again, who knows what could really happen, had Alexei had a decade or more to live?

[TheLionandTheEagle]

Wonder  why  The men   all died   pretty  young

Well, Nicholas's grandfather was murdered, and some say that Alexander III's kidney issues were caused by the train accident he was in.  And as you go farther and farther back, well, they would have had much less access to modern medicine than Nicholas would have.  His mother lived well into old age, after all, but then again, Nicholas did smoke...

As for Alexei and hemophilia treatment -- I was wrong in my earlier post.  He would have needed Factor IX, not VIII, because he had Hemophilia B, not the more common A.  Factor IX was isolated later. 

[Kalafrana]

As I understand it, blood transfusion on any scale began during WW1, but the major limiting factor was that there was no means of storing blood or plasma until the 1930s. Therefore the donor had to be available at the same time as the patient.

Treatment specific to haemophilia - clotting agents such as cryoprecipitate, followed by Factor VIII and Factor IX, did not begin until the 1960s.

It is true not say that life expectancies were shorter in the 19th centuries, but Romanov men had short lives even in that context.

Ann