Can two different types of genetic diseases strike in the same family?

Nithya Santosh who hails from Attingal has two children. Her first son is 5 years old. He had a genetic disorder that resulted in brittle bones. They did a genetic examination to diagnose this problem only to realize that his condition is called Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).

The treatment is still going on. When she was pregnant with her second child, they tried to find out if the child is also suffering from this genetic disorder. They decided to go ahead with the pregnancy only after detecting that such a disorder was not there.

When their daughter was born, she had no health issues. Now she is two years old and has a hearing problem. When she showed her to a doctor, she was told that it is a genetic disorder.

Is it possible that there will be two types of genetic disorders from the same family?

There are different types of genetic disorders. With about 7,000 genetic variations, humans are prone to congenital diseases. Out of this most are rare diseases. So these diseases occur very less compared to other diseases that commonly affect us.

However, in some families, more than one person may have more than one genetic disease. Sometimes a person may have more than one genetic disease. In such cases, it is difficult to diagnose the disease based on symptoms alone.

It is difficult to confirm without genetic testing. There are two types of genetic diseases in your family. When you are doing a genetic test on a newborn baby, you should remember that you are not doing a diagnosis for all genetic diseases.

Sometimes if you marry from the same family, there are higher chances of having more than one genetic disease.