Mon, Nov-06-06, 09:11
|
|
Senior Member
Posts: 3,371
|
|
Plan: Intermittent Fasting, LC
Stats: 242/215/130
BF:too/dang/much
Progress: 24%
Location: Florida
|
|
My BASO% also shows up in the abnormal column with 0. Range being 1 to 2.
Quote:
Basophils, ('baso' = alkali, 'phil' = loving) stain blue under the microscope because they are full of little granules containing histamine which are involved in some allergic reactions. The granules are acidic and combine with the blue alkaline (basic) dye in the mixture of dyes normally used for making blood cells show clearly under the microscope.
Basophils release the histamine when such an allergic reaction happens. Antihistamines are medicines which prevent histamine from having the effects which make us ill, and they work well in hay fever and most kinds of hives or 'urticaria'. Basophils are very similar to another kind of cell, the mast cell, which does not live in the bloodstream but in the lungs, nose, skin, gut, heart and other organs and is important in allergy. Both kinds of cell release histamine in allergic reactions. Unfortunately they also release quite a lot of other things which are rather similar to histamine in their effects. But antihistamines don't work against these other substances. This means that antihistamines may not make much difference to some allergic illnesses. For example antihistamines help asthma so little that we usually don't use them for asthma. In anaphylactic reactions (anaphylaxis) antihistamines are utterly inadequate on their own if the reaction is at all serious.
|
My MONO# also shows up in abnormal column at 0, though the range is shown as 0 to 1.
Quote:
Monocytes, ('mono' = single, 'cytes' = cells) have a nucleus of just one blob under the microscope, which is how they get their name, although this isn't too logical, as lymphocytes also have a one-blob nucleus. Their job is a bit similar to that of neutrophils, but they belong to a group of cell types which break up foreign particles and substances for the lymphocytes, which can then handle the recognition of the small fragments.
|
|