HOW CAN BLOOD SAVE YOUR LIFE?

HOW CAN DOCTORS HELP? 

Skilled physicians can help one  who has lost blood and so has fewer red cells. Once  volume is restored, doctors can administer oxygen  at high concentration. This makes more of it available for the body and has often had remarkable results. British  doctors used this with a woman who had lost so much blood that "her hemoglobin fell to 1.8 g/ditred. She was successfully treated .  .  . [with] high inspired oxygen concentrations and transfusions of large volumes of gelatin solution [Haemaccel]." (Anesthesia,  January 1987) The report also says that others with acute blood loss have been successfully treated in hyperbaric oxygen chambers. 

Physicians can also help their patients to form more red cells. How? By giving them iron-containing preparations (into muscles or veins), which can aid the body in making red cells three to four times faster than normal.  Recently another help has become available. Your kidneys produce a hormone called  erythropoietin (EPO), which stimulates bone marrow  to form red cells. Now synthetic (recombinant) EPO is available.  Doctors may give this to some anemic patients, thus helping them to form replacement red cells very quickly.

Even during surgery, skilled and conscientious surgeons and anesthesiologists can help by employing advanced blood-conservation methods. Meticulous operative technique, such as electrocautery to minimize bleeding, cannot be overstressed. Sometimes blood flowing into a wound can be aspirated, filtered, and directed back into circulation.  

Patients on a heart-lung machine primed with a non blood fluid may benefit from the resulting hemodilution, few red cells being lost. 

And there are other ways  to help. Cooling a patient to lessen his oxygen needs during surgery.   Hypotensive anesthesia. Therapy to improve coagulation.  Desmopressin (DDAVP) to shorten bleeding time.  Laser "scapels."  You will see the list grow as physicians and concerned patients seek to avoid blood transfusions. We hope that you never lose a great  amount of blood.  But if you did,m it is very likely that skilled doctors could manage your care without using blood transfusions, which have so many risks. 

Next time: HOW CAN BLOOD SAVE YOUR LIFE?/ SURGERY, YES -BUT WITHOUT TRANSFUSIONS

From the Watchtower magazine