Fellows,
I’m reading about donating blood, and they said that in large volume plasma donation, a replacement of saline is added to your blood stream to account for the large volume taken. I’m just wondering how it’s okay to just replace blood with Saline
In: 13
Saline just replaces water and salt. When a person is dehydrated (from vomiting a lot for example), they’re mostly missing water and salt so it’s ok to use that. When if a person has enough red blood cells and other blood components, you need enough water/salt to keep up the pressure in the system so all those cells can circulate.
If you give too much saline, it will dilute the red blood cells and start to cause problems. This is especially true if somebody is already anemic or is losing a lot of blood. Giving lots of saline when somebody is losing blood also dilutes clotting factors, which can make the bleeding worse. For those reasons, blood products are preferred for people who are having major bleeding.
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