Question: what happens when you have to much blood in your system

Ingmar Schoen answered on 7 Nov 2022:

I am not sure if I understand your question but I will try to give an answer.

Blood is a complicated fluid. It consists of water and salts. In addition, it contains a lot of proteins and cells.

In some cases, the blood has a higher (or lower) water content than normal. This can lead to water also accumulating in organs like the lung.

In other cases, there are more (or less) of some specific blood proteins or cells. This can be problematic. For example, if there are too many platelets in the blood, the platelets might start forming clots spontaneously. These clots might lead to a heart attack or a stroke, which happens when they block the blood supply to the heart or the brain.

Normally, the body is really good in regulating the composition of the blood so that everything is fine. This important process is called ‘homeostasis’. This term is easily confused with another important process called ‘haemostasis’. ‘Haem’ means ‘blood’ in Greek, ‘stasis’ means ‘standing still’. Haemostasis describes that a clot is formed to stop blood loss when the blood vessels got injured.

So you see that having too many or too few platelets in your blood can be a problem.

I hope I have answered your question?