Donating blood / organs
Friday, November 2, 2018
There is a lot of fear, myth, and misconceptions
regarding organ, blood, and tissue donation so we
checked around to get the straight facts about organ
donation.
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing there
are strict standards put in place to make sure that
organs are matched with strict ethical considerations
and in a fair manner to distribute it equally to all
who need it. The methodology that they do so is based
on factors such as:
– blood and tissue type
– organ size,
– waiting time
– how medically urgent it is
– where the location is geographically.
Everyone should at least consider the possiblity that
they can give potential life saving parts and depending
how a person is at the time of their death also
determines health and viability of the donated organs
and tissue.
It does not cost anything to donate these life saving
parts to someone else and can be noted on a license of
driving or state donor registry or a National Donation
registry.
It does not make a person more likely to die just to
retrieve the organs as some people fear. A medical
professional has ethical and legal considerations that
dictate that they must do what they can to save a
person’s life so organ donation can only be considered
and began after a death of a person’s brain has been
declared by the physician.
Almost all organs can be donated including but not
limited to kidneys, hearts, lungs, skin, liver,
corneas, bones, nerves.
There are people that need these organs in order to be
health and it doesn’t matter what race because someone
else somewhere may need it.
A list is created via a computer that does its best to
match based on many characteristics. Most of the time
you have to be over the age of 18 to register to be an
organ donor but often younger can as well. It’s a good
time to let family member know so they understand what
you would like to happen.
It is also possible to specify which particular organs
or tissues you want to donate.
If at some future you decide you no longer want to be
on the list you can update this status.
These donations will not interfere with funeral
services or cause disfigurement because there are
surgical procedures that can close any incisions to
retrieve the organs.
If you are donating blood it is usually subject to
blood testing which is usually done via three possible
ways. They can test using “blood typing” or cross
matching or “tissue typing”.
The first will check what is called ABO compatibility
because blood types are not the same for everyone.
There is a blood type A that can give to A and AB.
Blood type B donates to B and AB.
AB only matches with blood type AB.
And type O can donate to the same type O or any of the
previous blood types of A, B, AB.
However where O is a universal DONOR. the AB blood type
can give to any blood type but O is restricted only to
O. A can give to A and O. B can give to B and O. And
finally AB can give to AB, A, B, and O.
There are additional ways to get blood by lowering antibody levels in some situations.
Tissue Typing determines tissue type via a process called HLA to get a idea of best match. Then it also checks against your antibodies
Crossmatch involves mixing of both donor and recipient to see if there is a high antibody could and cause organs to get rejected.
Some final tips:
Know your blood type.
Your body is like a robot helping others.
You can buy a blood type kit from Amazon such as Dr. D’Adamo’s kit to do a self test. But it’s probably just as easy to go to a local hospital to donate blood or get tested.
