Banking blood before surgery

[Lynlw]

I was all set to bank my own blood but could not put it together in the time available. Doctors then said it was probably not necessary as they salvage my own blood.

Just to confirm what Lyn mentioned, it seems to be standard procedure at most hospitals. At our hospital the cardiovascular perfusion equipment (heart/lung bypass pump) is owned and operated by a private person and his account shows the salvaging of blood and the use of the autotransfusion cell washing device. It seems to be part and parcel of the bypass pump equipment....

BUT I had such a platelet problem in the ICU that I still needed 2 units from the general bloodbank. Not very happy about having received foreign blood but at that stage had no choice, in fact I was still totally sedated and was only told afterwards.

Did you get just platelets? IF so for the most part, even IF you donated blood, you would still have needed other people's platelets. The amount of platelets from 1 unit of blood, is such a small amount, they usually give bags of "pooled platelets",that are (i forget the exact number now) all the platelets from 6-10 donor units of blood. So even if they took the platelets from your blood it would have been a small amount of the platelets you got.

There is another kind of platelets call single donor platelet, but that is quite involved process, where they take blood out of a donor into a machine that removes the platelets only and replace the rest of your blood. This way you get all the platelets from 1 donor. The problem w/ single donor platelets and why you can't donate that for yourself, is they have a very short shelf life and have to be thrown out after 5 days. It takes your body about 2 weeks to replace that many platelets, and You certainly don't want to go into heart surgery with very low platelets.
http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/types-donations/platelet-donation

 

[Johan]

Lyn, I find your post about platelets very interesting. Not sure what happened to me, the nurses told me, when I came to, that I had a platelet problem and received 2 units of donor blood. Probably not just platelets but whole blood with the hope that the small amount of platelets in the blood will augment my own supply...

 

[Lynlw]

Lyn, I find your post about platelets very interesting. Not sure what happened to me, the nurses told me, when I came to, that I had a platelet problem and received 2 units of donor blood. Probably not just platelets but whole blood with the hope that the small amount of platelets in the blood will augment my own supply...

I bet your getting sorry you even mentioned needing platelets
IF they did, that is usually not the way most places do it. Whole blood has everything in it, but for the most part, unless the whole blood is only a day or so old, the clotting factors aren't that good, it mainly just helps with replacing lost volumn.
(which has to do with when I mentioned earlier in this thread for Justin's heart surgeries as a Baby, we had to find 5 people with his blood type that could donate the day before his surgery because they wanted whole blood with all the clotting factors still working)

Usually (but not always) when they take a unit of blood they break it down into red cells (which most people think of when they get a unit of blood) It is usually stored in a refrigerator and is good for a little over a month.
Plasma- that they freeze imeadiately to preserve the clotting factors ect and it is good in the freezer for a year then they defrost it when a person needs it (Fresh Frozen Plasma- FFP) AFTER it is defrosted it has to be used in 24 (or 48 I can't remeber exactly) hours, or you have to throw it out.

Platelets, that are stored at room temp and are constants moving to keep them for clumping. they're only good for 5 days

Then they can break things down even further or for special reason freeze blood