Blood Donation: Part Three

So what did we learn from this (and further research)

Your body is replacing blood cells all the time naturally.  In fact, I was curious and I looked it up - red blood cells are replaced every 120 days But white blood cells are replaced much more frequently - almost daily.  All white blood cells are derived from cells in the bone marrow known as hematopoietic stem cells. The bone marrow then stores an estimated 80–90% of white blood cells. But some still circulate in the blood. 

It is these hematopoietic stem cells that are damaged in the first instance. These stem cells have mutations that may not allow the stem cell to turn into a normal functioning b cell / plasma cell (differentiate). The stem cells work fine for every other kind of White Blood Cell. They only have a mutation that effects differentiation B/ Plasma Cells. When the body calls for new b cells / plasma cells it calls up damaged stem cells and these stem cells can become clonal cells. The particular type of White Blood Cells that we have issues with are B cells: also known as B-lymphocytes, also known as Plasma B cells, these cells produce antibodies to help the immune system mount a response to infection.  There are like 7 different white blood cell types but MGUS people only have a defect with regard to the WBCs that are B cells / Plasma cells. 

So Dr. Kyle did help me figure some of this out... when he said that he doubted that plasma cells would be in the blood with a small MGUS. That gave me the hint that the white blood cells in the blood would be less than red. 

Googling it, I found out 

Most people will produce around 100 billion white blood cells every day. There are normally between 4,000 and 11,000 cells in every microliter of blood, although this can vary according to race.

 And, in fact

Plasma cells are not normally found in the blood circulation. Notably, B cells, the precursors of plasma cells, also undergo much of their early development in the bone marrow.   

Ok so now we are getting someplace, it would seem that in the first place... that blood donation is likely to have zero effect on B /Plasma cells. As this particular type of WBC is not in circulation anyway.  But, even if they were... losing a pint of blood is not going to effect your white blood count very much.  You have about 7 to 10 pints of blood in your body. Looking it up.. since there are about 4000 WB cells in 1 milliliter of blood, and a pint of blood  is 473 or 568 milliliters.... you probably will loose about 1,892,000 white blood cells in one pint of blood.  If we produce about 100 billion white blood cells daily well, it would seem the body might hardly notice a million cell loss.

So finally I think I have an answer. Blood donation will not effect the plasma cells / clone cells because they are "walled off" from the blood stream.

It does make sense. If you want to get a count of your clonal cells you cannot just test the blood. The only thing that will be in the blood are after effects of clonal cells, M-Protien,  immunoglobulins, and Light Chains. To see what is going with clonal cells you need to get a bone marrow biopsy. 

The B / Plasma cells will not react to blood donation but, they will react to viral or bacterial infection - when bacteria or viruses enter the body, some of the B cells will change into plasma cells. The plasma cells make antibodies to fight bacteria and viruses, to stop infection and disease.  There is a great chart on this link that gives a good idea -- Chart