• Question: what is a blood clott

    Asked by bobmarley2 to Callum, Katie, Michelle, Sam on 22 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Sam Godfrey

      Sam Godfrey answered on 22 Nov 2012:

      A blood clot is a mix of dead blood cells that have been glued together. You have these special cells in your blood called platelets and when there is bleeding they form a plug or clut to stop the bleeding. You have special white blood cells called thrombocytes that recognise that there is injury and release special proteins that attract the platelets and form clots. The whole process is quite complicated involving loads of special proteins which activate each other (and I never succeeded in remembering them all) and if you are missing just one then it can be life threatening. After a while the body dissolves the blood clot, or if it is on the surface as a scab it just falls off. This happens when the body has healed itself. Sometimes the blood clot breaks off early inside the body and travels around till it gets stuck. This is what causes strokes. Because the blood clot blocks some of the blood vessels to a certain bit of the brain and the brain starves of oxygen.

    • Photo: Callum Johnston

      Callum Johnston answered on 22 Nov 2012:

      Hey bobmarely!

      A blood clot is a thick plug of blood that appears after injury to a blood vessel (veins and arteries). If you get a cut the blood vessel starts producing special cells called platelets which cause the blood to get thicker and stop flowing out of the hole in the vessel. This is very useful because if it didn’t happen you would bleed to death, and some people have a condition or are on medications which mean their blood doesn’t clot and they can die from just a small wound.

      The problem is that sometimes the damage hasn’t been done by a cut but by fat building up in the blood vessels. This causes clots to form inside the vessel and that can stop the blood flowing through that vessel to the part of the body it is heading for. This can cause heart attacks and strokes, where the vessels going to the heart or brain get blocked by the clot and the lack of blood causes damage to the organs or can even cause death!

    • Photo: Katie Howe

      Katie Howe answered on 22 Nov 2012:

      Hi!

      There is quite a complex process which causes a blood clot to form as the guys mentioned above. That means that if just one part of this process is faulty then an blood clot doesnt form and we could bleed to death. That is what happens in a disease called hemophila. An important molecule which makes the blood cells stick together in a clot is missing so sufferers of this disease have to take drugs which helps their blood to clot.

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