How+does+blood+clot?


 * __HOW DOES BLOOD CLOT?__**

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According to the expert I contacted, Lori Newman, "Blood clotting consists of many complex reactions. Changes in any of the steps can cause bleeding problems. Normally floating around in the blood are red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and proteins called clotting factors. These parts of your blood can float around in the blood vessels without causing problems because they are inactive or turned off. They become active or turned on due to certain reactions that happen when you cut yourself.

When you cut yourself the first thing that happens is that the platelets close to the cut become sticky. This causes the platelets to stick to the wall of the blood vessel where it is cut. It starts to form a plug over the cut to temporarily slow down or stop the bleeding. Clotting factors then start to attach to the platelets. This helps to strengthen the clot. One of these factors is changed into a different protein called fibrin. Fibrin forms a weblike structure over the clot. This helps to pull the sides of the cut together and make the clot stronger. As blood continues to flow past the injured site red blood cells catch on to the sticky web and get stuck. This gives the final clot the red color that you can see. All of these steps effectively seal the cut so that no further bleeding happens. Once the cut has completely healed the clot is dissolved by other chemical reactions and the blood vessel is completely healed.

Any problems with any of these steps can cause changes in the blood clotting process. Some people have bleeding disorders that causes slow clotting or sometimes no clotting at all. Cuts can be life threatening to these people. Others may take medication to cause slower clotting such as people who have artificial, mechanical heart valves. At times a blood clot may form inside of a blood vessel that has not been cut. If this happens inside an artery in your heart it can cause a heart attack. If it happens inside an artery in your head it can cause a stroke." A very good video to see this is a YouTube video- []

Lori Newman

Lori Newman is a registered nurse with over 25 years of nursing experience. She has worked with heart patients for more than 20 years. The last 11 years she has worked with people with congenital heart disease (heart problems that they were born with) These can be things like holes in the heart, missing parts or even hearts that have been formed backwards. Lori is also back in school part time finishing her nursing degree at Athabasca University.

__Additional Responses:__

//How does blood clot? You might ask, well...// //When you get a cut or scrape somewhere on your body, if the injury is deep enough to break the skin, it will start to bleed. Inside your blood stream you have platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells and the plasma. The platelets are the tiny bodies or cell fragments that travel in your blood and when ever there is a break in the skin or tear in blood clots, the platelets become activated/ become sticky. Then they stop the tear by coming together and creating a plug for the blood passing by.//

//What clots the blood?// //The platelets only create a temporary plug as they aren’t strong enough to hold off the time it takes for skin to regrow. And because the platelets cannot do everything their selves, they need back up help. Here is where the clotting factors come for the help. When they are flowing through the blood stream and they notice a tear and platelets, then come to the rescue and fill in all the blanks, helping hold off the blood while the skin regrows. Then the fibrin comes for extra help. The fibrin acts like the glue in situations like this, it is the sticky material that looks like a net and it lays overtop of the platelets and the clotting factors.////These materials keep together the tear (cut) until the tissue/skin grows again. Once the tear is healed, your body dissolves the platelet, clotting factor, and fibrin.//

//What is being clotted?// //As I said before, in your blood you have red and white blood cells, the platelets and the plasma. In a scenario in which you get cut, the plasma and red blood cells don’t do much work. The plasma is the yellowish fluid that travels in your blood - it acts as a transportation (like a canal) for the blood cells and platelets. The red blood cells are the cells that transport oxygen throughout the body. There can be millions of red blood cells in a single drop of blood, and so it is important for the platelets to keep the red blood cells in the blood flow. The white blood cells play a part in the scenario if you get a cut because their job is to fight of infections, disease, bacteria and germs. The white blood cells are going through the bloodstream and once detected a cut or entry path for disease, they are instantly on it. When the platelets are doing their own job, clotting the blood, the white blood cells are fighting off any disease/germs that had entered the blood stream.//

//Specific Terms:// //Platelets - The cells in our blood stream (blood) that’s job is to form a plug on cuts and clot blood.//

//Plasma - The yellowish fluid that acts as a transportations, bringing the cells along with it throughout the blood stream (blood).//

//Red Blood Cells - The cells in the blood stream (blood) that transport oxygen throughout the blood.//

//White Blood Cells - The cells in the blood stream (blood) that kill bacteria and germs.//

//Fibrin - The web like substance that acts as a glue above the platelets and clotting factors when clotting blood.//

__[|//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--bZUeb83uU//]__ __[|//http://www.emedtv.com/search.html?searchString=how%20does%20blood%20clot//]__

-Mal

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