You are born with a blood type and whether it's a B+. Oh - or anything in between that's almost. Definitely the blood type. You'll have your entire life almost definitely, in some cases, your blood type can change. And one reason it happens has to do with of all things cells inside your bones. Usually, when we're talking about blood types, we use the ABO and Rh systems. It's refers to different antigens or markers, on the surface of your red blood cells type. A blood, has the a antigen Type B. Has the B antigen type. A B has both and typos has neither even while the positive or negative sign, usually attached to blood types refers to a protein called Rh factor. Positive means you have it - means you don't whatever you have though. Blood type is genetically. Determined what you're born with is generally what you get and what type you have can be good to know after all. If her body's recognized blood, that is incompatible with our blood type. Like during a transfusion, it will launch a potentially deadly response against it. So if there's anything that can change,
Type. That's important to understand. So far, we know of one big way that can happen in that it poetic stem cell transplants, these cells or hscs for short are found throughout your body mostly in your bones and since they can be damaged or destroyed by cancer and other diseases. Occasionally, someone will need new ones. Those new cells can come from elsewhere in someone's body, but they can also come from a donor, and when they do that donation, can change a patient's blood type because here's the key. When HSC settled down in your bones, As they produce more specialized cells including red blood cells. So if you get an HSE transplant from someone with jeans for a different blood type, you're going to turn out different blood over. All these procedures might not sound familiar but there's likely a kind of HSE transplant. You've heard of bone marrow transplant. See despite the name these transplants aren't about completely replacing the tissue. Inside certain bones, they're specifically about giving someone knew him at a poetic stem cells for instance, to replace cancerous ones. Now, I mentioned earlier that the He can attack incompatible blood cells. So it kind of seems like an HSC donor. Should always have the same blood type as the recipient, but there's an exception here. Unlike with solid organ transplants at doctors are just looking at ABO blood type. In this case, instead, they're making sure people have the same human, leukocyte antigens or HLA type like the a b. Antigens, your body uses these markers to tell whether certain cells belong to you, when it comes to HSE transplants, these antigens are actually more important than the ones on blood cells. That's because stem cells. That become a Blood cells. Don't have a b, antigens yet, but they do have HLA s. So if there's a mismatch, the transplant might see some complications. And in some cases it's easier to deal with the changing blood type, the not having a transplant at all. Really this is a reminder that our bodies are amazing complicated systems and before we go messing with them, it's helpful to know how everything works. Because even understanding something that seems as basic as blood type can have life-saving implications.