I’m about to go to the hospital to receive 2 units of blood, because I’m dangerously low on something (red cells?) .
It’s not my first time, but I always wondered, how does the body have space for an extra litre of blood in your system? What happens to the veins? Do they just stretch out a bit to accommodate? Also, what about having too much of other stuff after this? Like plasma? I am so confused by how all of this works.
I do know that there must be a way for the body to balance itself out afterwards, as usually I need to urinate quite badly afterwards 😅
Please help make light of this, I am not looking forward to being stabbed again ( I have extremely hard veins to find) and I need the distraction, and the answer!
Thank you !
In: 1
Yes! The soft components of your body are stretchy and resilient. It’s like how you can drink a lot of water without bursting like a water balloon.
>Also, what about having too much of other stuff after this? Like plasma?
Donated blood is typically separated out into different parts, so if you just need red blood cells, they’ll give you red blood cells with a lot of the plasma removed. But [it is possible to “overload” your body with too much blood volume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfusion-associated_circulatory_overload). The solution to this would be giving the patient diuretics, but if you can go pee on your own you will be fine.
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