Facts, please.

[conuly]

If somebody has type AB blood, they don't *need* their relatives to donate! AB! Universal recipient!

And if I know that little factoid, every single writer on the face of the Earth needs to know it too. Sheesh.

Comments

[ncp.livejournal.com]

No, but doctors like it if they don't have to dip into the blood bank when a relative could have easily donated instead.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Unless it is AB-, in which case it can only take negative blood. Or if you don't need blood, but need something that requires more of a match. Or if you need very large amounts of blood, in which case you need an exact match, except if you clean the blood to make it match with anyone for reals as opposed to just the mostly matching that an AB person can do with A, B, or O blood.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

It drives me insane when characters in movies/TV shows say things like "And I really feel like I should donate blood, because I have a really rare blood type: AB+."

Let me tell you, I'm AB+, and the local blood bank has asked me not to bother unless I want to donate plasma.

[conuly]

Yeah, it was AB-, but all the same, that's still A- and B- and O- as possibilities.

They looked on Wikipedia long enough to see that AB- is the rarest of the common blood types, but not long enough to see that it accepts half of all of the common blood types out there!

[conuly]

But when you have to track down relatives to make them donate....

[leora.livejournal.com]

True, but you still generally want an exact match for large blood transfers, if I recall correctly. The problem is you don't want the donated blood attacking the recipient. In small blood transfusions, this isn't enough to be a problem, but I was told it could be in large-scale medical problems.

I could, of course, be wrong.

[conuly]

That does make sense.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Assuming AB+ you're right. Assuming AB- it's a little trickier, but you're still right I think.

[woodface]

Yes, we AB people are greedy. We like to take but not give. Mwahahahaha.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

From what I've been told by the folks at the lab, blood typing is a lot more complicated than just ABO and + or -. I haven't done any research on this personally, I've just taken their word for it, but...

...now I guess I'll have to...

But even if that's not the case, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to consider using blood from a directed donor rather than just blood from the blood bank. None of them are really great reasons, honestly, and most of them come down to "well, I don't know where that other blood came from", especially with all of the safety precautions that have been put into place to assure that every unit of blood is okay to pass on to another person...

Regardless, as a Red Cross phlebotomist, I have to argue that there's no bad reason to encourage people to donate blood.

[woodface]

Hahahahaha. And I just watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles and a paramedic was all "you can't give O- to someone with AB-!"

[conuly]

Yes, it is more complicated than that, which is where we get rare blood types from.

[conuly]

Ouch. Just... ouch.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

This is unrelated, but I thought of you when I watched this last night:

http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/positively_autistic/positively_autistic.html

I don't know if you've seen it yet.

[(Anonymous)]

No, but doctors like it if they don't have to dip into the blood bank when a relative could have easily donated instead.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Unless it is AB-, in which case it can only take negative blood. Or if you don't need blood, but need something that requires more of a match. Or if you need very large amounts of blood, in which case you need an exact match, except if you clean the blood to make it match with anyone for reals as opposed to just the mostly matching that an AB person can do with A, B, or O blood.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

It drives me insane when characters in movies/TV shows say things like "And I really feel like I should donate blood, because I have a really rare blood type: AB+."

Let me tell you, I'm AB+, and the local blood bank has asked me not to bother unless I want to donate plasma.

[conuly]

Yeah, it was AB-, but all the same, that's still A- and B- and O- as possibilities.

They looked on Wikipedia long enough to see that AB- is the rarest of the common blood types, but not long enough to see that it accepts half of all of the common blood types out there!

[conuly]

But when you have to track down relatives to make them donate....

[leora.livejournal.com]

True, but you still generally want an exact match for large blood transfers, if I recall correctly. The problem is you don't want the donated blood attacking the recipient. In small blood transfusions, this isn't enough to be a problem, but I was told it could be in large-scale medical problems.

I could, of course, be wrong.

[conuly]

That does make sense.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Assuming AB+ you're right. Assuming AB- it's a little trickier, but you're still right I think.

[woodface]

Yes, we AB people are greedy. We like to take but not give. Mwahahahaha.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

From what I've been told by the folks at the lab, blood typing is a lot more complicated than just ABO and + or -. I haven't done any research on this personally, I've just taken their word for it, but...

...now I guess I'll have to...

But even if that's not the case, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to consider using blood from a directed donor rather than just blood from the blood bank. None of them are really great reasons, honestly, and most of them come down to "well, I don't know where that other blood came from", especially with all of the safety precautions that have been put into place to assure that every unit of blood is okay to pass on to another person...

Regardless, as a Red Cross phlebotomist, I have to argue that there's no bad reason to encourage people to donate blood.

[woodface]

Hahahahaha. And I just watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles and a paramedic was all "you can't give O- to someone with AB-!"

[conuly]

Yes, it is more complicated than that, which is where we get rare blood types from.

[conuly]

Ouch. Just... ouch.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

This is unrelated, but I thought of you when I watched this last night:

http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/positively_autistic/positively_autistic.html

I don't know if you've seen it yet.