Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related I have a couple of questions...

Hello,

I was hoping that someone in the medical field could answer a couple of questons for me.

Let's say that someone with a very rare blood type (like out of this world blood type ) lost a lot of blood, enough to kill him. Could someone else with the same rare blood type be able to donate blood to save him. Would it be possible to donate enough blood safely? And how much blood would a person have to lose for it to become life threatening?

Thanks in advance, guys.

I just questioned my hubby (who studied pre-med in college) and he feels that 2 pints lost would be life-threatening and you can safely donate 1 pint at a time, but you must replenish that pint before you can donate again. Most blood banks suggest donating no more than once a month.

You can also replace an injured person's blood with plasma or platelets...

Hope this helps!

Thank you so much!

I tried searching the web, but I know so little about anything medically related that I couldn't find what I was looking for, or anything that made much sense.

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.

A person who has lost a great deal of blood should, ideally, have that blood volume replaced by the same type (or a compatible type) of blood, but if that's not possible, the next best thing to do is to replace the blood volume. Excessive blood loss will cause vital organs (like kidneys and liver) to shut down, and it can damage the lungs and heart due to the dangerously low blood pressure. It makes them work harder with fewer results.

As Anne said, blood plasma with platelets (to promote clotting) is the next best thing, but in a very, very extreme pinch, one might use a one percent saline solution in pure water just to replace the volume. You'd still have the problems brought on by low red cell count, like difficulty with oxygen exchange in both the lungs and the other cells, and there would be a danger of cell death in the extremeties due to a buildup of CO2 (because the red blood cells might not be able to keep up with the O2/CO2 exchange), but at least the fluid volume problem would be alleviated. This, of course, assumes that the trauma which caused the blood loss has been treated.

You might try googling "blood loss trauma treatment side effects" to see if you get better results. No promises, though.

You know, that sounds like a very interesting premise. I'll look for it on the boards!

Ok, so in a trauma - the first thing that gets done is to put a couple of big IVs in someone who's lost a lot of blood - then they get a bunch of normal saline (IV fluids, not blood products yet). This will keep the amount of blood circulating enough to keep blood pressure up and keep the vital organs perfused. Eventually you will get a dilutional effect where the amount of oxygen the blood can carry won't be enough to sustain life because there aren't enough red blood cells. So, after 2-3 boluses of IV fluids, then we start using blood products (in humans, O negative if we don't know the person's blood type). I have no idea how O negative blood would work in Kryptonians... You can get type specific or direct donor blood products, but for the direct donor, it's not like you pull it out of one person, turn around and inject it into another person - the blood gets cleaned and concentrated usually. I guess in a pinch it could be done, but it's not a scenario that happens in the majority of the medical world.

As far as how much blood can a person lose or donate at a time... Once you get up to about 10-15% of the circulating volume, you're reaching trouble. Normal human = about 5L of blood, so 1/2 a liter would probably be enough to start causing trouble; once you get to a liter, you're probably reaching scary areas. Really acutely life-threatening blood loss is 30-40% of circulating blood volume - there you're kind of reaching the point of no return. But again, in the short term, you can make up some of that with just fluids - temporize until you can do blood products. First blood products in this situation would be packed red blood cells, then possibly platelets if you're having ongoing bleeding. Third would be FFP (fresh frozen plasma - the liquid part of the blood), this would be after lots and lots of ongoing bleeding - more likely if you have an actual bleeding/clotting problem.
And as far as donating blood, most blood banks will only allow about a pint of blood at a time. Then you do have to wait for a while. Platelets you can donate more frequently.

DocJill

Thanks a bunch, guys! Your info is really helpful.

Thanks for the interest, Terry. I'm actually gathering this information for my story, Exposure.

Thanks again, everyone!

There are synthetic blood substitutes. They're all still experimental but they do work to provide much of the benefits of blood without having to match type. Synthetic blood . Given cloning and such in the L&C world they would be reasonable to be available.

You realize, of course, that all of this applies to humans. We don't know how similar things would be for such a unique individual as you describe. As similar as you want them to be, I guess. But do keep in mind that there are physical differences involved, including (perhaps, depending on circumstances) a hardier constitution and a supplemental energy source...

REMEMBERING THAT THE BLOOD TYPING SYSTEMS TALKED ABOUT SO FAR (A/B/O and the rhesus factor-/+) ARE IN REFERENCE TO SPECIFIC PROTEINS FOUND IN THE BLOOD....


so that an O-neg person's blood contains neither A or B antibody, nor the rhesus factor, which means that should anybody with any-type of blood be in need of a transfusion, AS THERE ARE NO ANTIBODIES BEING DONATED-- immune system target proteins----THEN THE RECIPIENT WILL NOT UNDERGO ANY REACTION AGAINST THE BLOOD----------

AND-----AN AB+ person is said to be a universal receiver, as they can receive any type of blood and not form this immune reaction, as the proteins in question are already native to their system, their immune cells will not register foreign blood....


THUS>>>
I would say that although on the surface it may appear that for a kryptonian in an emergency O-neg would be the blood of choice (as we do not know better), unless some sort of analysis could be done on kryptonian immune system, and any antibodies involved, I WOULD BE HESITANT TO TREAT THE BLOOD GROUPS AS SIMPLY BEING A/B/O and +/- AS THEIR MAY BE A MULTITUDE OF PROTEINS IN THE KRYPTONIAN BLOOD THAT WE DO NOT KNOW ABOUT........


but then again, this is fiction , and the writer has licence to invent any combination of blood-types for kryptonians and may wish to simplify the whole process, perhaps by stipulating no significant differences.....


AS TO K-K transfusions...... again it would have to be determined whether any differences between the K's would have an impact. certainly one can say that "half-breeds" with humans would throw a whole other spanner into the works, as the new proteins may never have been seen before in either "species"

HEY, I;m a scientist at heart.....


I THOUGHT OF Something that would "solve" any questions raised within any fics (giving the author options as-well)


by using some sort of test that measured activity of the immune system, and hence the compatibility of the blood, despite any species, or other genetic differences.


perhaps through immuno-fluorescence that measures the reactivity of the immune system by creating a change in chemical structure that produces a visible----and measurable through spectroscopy--- changes in the blood when the cytokines react with other molecules

this would be based upon the scientific basis behind the ABO+/- differences, but take into account any other possible differences the Kryptonian inheritance may incorporate.....

at the same time the author would be free to chose any results they wanted, just by doing a test as the one above, and simply state that because kryptonians are different anyway, the analysis does nt have to be on the ABO level, but on purely individual donor-recipiant basis (As the classifications we have are only there to simplify and speed up the donation process due to pre-assessed criteria based upon a "purely human" (???? I dont know????) phenomenon)


hope you understood,
and I hope it wasn't too waffly, and you could at least follow my train of thought enough to look into this yourselves..

look at ABO and rhesus factors from wikipedia if you want, I'm sure they will be adequate, but I am too tired to do any research tonight.


it is 1/2 past midnight, I have had 8 hours sleep in the last 64h, and will get less than 6 tonight before a 12 hour day tomorrow

Thanks for replying, everyone. I really appreciate it!