I am working on a project about hemolytic transfusion reactions. I have been unsuccessful thus far in finding someone who has first-hand experience with this type of reaction.
If you have worked with a patient who had this reaction, could you please share the experience with me? I don't have any specific questions, per se, I simply would like to "hear" an account of events that occurred in the room at the time of the reaction.
Another thing to remember is that there are far, far more factors for which to crossmatch than the A,B, and O groups and Rh pos/neg. Last I looked there were something like more than 50, and there are probably more now. Someone who is transfusion-naive, meaning someone who has never received a transfusion, may not have a reaction at all if his blood was properly typed for A, B, and O and Rh pos/neg. However, if he gets repeated transfusions, he may have become sensitized to some of those other myriad factors, and require much more extensive crossmatching to donor blood to avoid reactions in the future.
This is one reason we pre-treat before transfusions with diphenhydramine or other antihistamines, to suppress the adverse allergic reaction. I once heard someone say, "Why would we want to mask a reaction, wouldn't we want to know about it?" Well, actually, in that case, we would definitely want to suppress it, knowing that it might be more likely to occur given the patient's past history of transfusions.
NicuGal, MSN, RN
2,743 Posts
I have seen it twice in the neonates I work with, they drop their BP, drop their temp and then pee blood pretty quickly. Scary stuff