| From: Susan | 21/02/2001
9:18:19 |
| Subject: Blood | post id:
235021 |
| Just reading somthing Neddles
said in another thread about her blood being AB+ not 0+, a mistake made by
the hospital. What happens if you get the wrong type of blood? SUSAN | |
| From: Kothos ® | 21/02/2001
9:21:40 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235024 |
I thought you got really sick and maybe died. The foreign blood causes yours to coagulate in your veins and arteries doesn't it? | |
| From: Zardoz ® | 21/02/2001
9:26:33 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235026 |
| Our bodies are able to recognise
foreign objects. For instance, if something enters our blood that our body
does not recognise, it will try to kill or dispose of the foreign
material. The body recognises the wrong blood as a foreign object. This is a part of the antigen-antibody reaction. In this case, the antigens circulating in your blood are different from the ones in the donor blood. The agglutination (clumping of blood) occurs in your blood. But, in the blood stream, there are small tubes, called vessels which can become "clogged" with the clumped cells. This causes the blood cell to open up and release it's contents. This is called lysis. The term for blood lysis is hemolysis. One of the main components in the blood is called haemoglobin. When the cell lyses, the haemoglobin is released into the blood stream. This large amount of haemoglobin is then transported to the kidney. The kidney can become blocked, and may fail to function. This can result in death within a week to 12 days, due to the failed kidney, and the accumulation of haemoglobin. | |
| From: mimosa ® | 21/02/2001
9:34:17 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235030 |
| if i remember correctly, there
was a time when O+ was thought of as a universal
donor. | |
| From: troy | 21/02/2001
9:36:51 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235032 |
| forgive what is possibly a dumb
question, but is the majority of blood identical? can blood be
type-changed by adding or removing parts or manufacturing
components? I was just thinking if we had a generic 'blood' that could be manipulated for each patient, it may help ease blood shortages in certain types | |
| From: Zardoz ® | 21/02/2001
9:46:30 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235035 |
| Well, in theory, but not yet in
practice. It's not possible to make, for example, type A blood out of what was previously type B blood. Blood types are determined by the presence or absence of specific antigens, or molecular ID badges, on the surface of the red blood cell. So to switch between types, one would have to insert or remove individual protein antigens from the surface of the cell. This would seem to be impossible, at least to a degree that would provide enough blood for even a single transfusion (hundreds of millions of cells, maybe more). However, there are some really interesting possibilities with synthetic blood substitutes. | |
| From: Marilyn | 21/02/2001
10:28:37 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235043 |
O- is the universal donor, although hospitals try to use the same type. It works one way, for instance a + person can accept + or - blood, but a - person can only accept -. An O person can only accept O, but A and B can accept theirs and O as well. An AB+ person could accept anything (except maybe some very rare ones). | |
| From: Zardoz ® | 21/02/2001
10:36:47 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235045 |
| Type O is the most common blood
type in the world. Type AB is the rarest. There is also a subtype called A-H, (Bombay Blood) but to date, only three people in the world are known to have it. | |
| From: lentil | 21/02/2001
13:28:19 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235165 |
| A-type people have A antigens on
the surface of their red blood cells, B-type people have B antigen and AB
people have both A and B antigens. O-type don't have either A or B (read O
as Oh, but it really means nought). If you have A-type blood, you won't
make antibodies against A, but you will make antibodies against B.
Therefore receiving A-type blood is OK, cause you don't have antibodies to
A, and receiving O-type blood is OK because the cells don't have B
antigens on the surface to react with the anti-B antibodies. But if you
were to receive B-type blood, you would produce antibodies against B and
the B blood cells would react with the antibodies and this causes the
problem. In the same way B-types can receive B or O-type blood. O-type people can receive only O-type blood cause they will produce antibodies against both B and A cells. Lentil | |
| From: zeckie ® | 21/02/2001
13:33:24 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235170 |
| Does the + or - bit come from
whether you have rhesus antibodies or something like
that? | |
| From: lentil | 21/02/2001
13:56:33 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235203 |
| Yep, so a Rh- person doesn't have
Rh antigen on the surface of their cells, and therefore produces Rh
antibodies, whilst a Rh+ person has the antigen on the surface of their
cells, and so doesn't produce anti-Rh antibodies. An Rh+ person can
therefore receive Rh+ or Rh_ blood, because they won't produce antibodies
against the donor blood cells, but an Rh- person can only receive Rh-
blood, because they will produce antibodies against any Rh+ donor
cells. | |
| From: J.F. ® | 21/02/2001
23:35:29 |
| Subject: re: Blood | post id:
235543 |
| We produce antibodies to A and B
antigens, unless we have them on our own RBC. So B people make antiA, A
people make antiB, O people make antiA + antiB. AB people would make
neither. Bacteria have very similar antigens on their surfaces, so we are exposed to these antigens even without having blood transfusions. AFAIK, AB mismatches result in dramatic + dangerous disease in the recipient. The antibodies involved are immunoglobulin M. Antibodies to other blood antigens, such as Rhesus antibodies, are made once you are exposed to foreign blood cells. This usually happens when a woman lacking an antigen conceives a child whose blood has the antigen (inherited from the father). The first exposure will sensitise the recipient, and an immune response may develop (immunoglobulin G). On subsequent exposure, the response will be stronger, and may cause illness. So repeated transfusions, even with typed + crossmatched blood, can rsult in a patient producing antibodies to more + more foreign antigens. They can become very hard to crossmatch! Group O Rhesus negative blood is sometimes called "universal donor" but it is routine to type + crossmatch blood (each unit), and not use old records. They have to check for new antibodies, anyway. Once the antibodies bind to the foreign cells, there is a rapid + powerful reaction by "complement". This lyses cells, as stated by ZardoZ. Complement is a vital part of the immune system. Debris from the complement reaction can damage nearby cells too. Complement binds to antigen - antibody complexes, which may have jammed in capillaries, especially kidney capillaries. Kidney damage would be major. Blood types are genetically determined, + not changeable. After bone marrow transplants, though, the recipient has the bone marrow donor's blood type. | |