BETA - What are red blood cells?

Red blood cells are really important. They are used in our body to carry oxygen to our tissues so that they are there in the circulation. They go through the lungs and they pick up oxygen and then they take that to the rest of our body so that the cells and the tissues in our body have the necessary oxygen to grow and function. Low red blood cells are called anemia and generally speaking that's a hemoglobin that's for us less than 10, but certainly anything less than normal can qualify as somebody calling it anemia. Red cell width tells you whether there are earlier red blood cells released in the circulation and that usually tells you if the width is large that the bone marrow is under stress and releases the red blood cells earlier than it typically would do. And then the earlier red blood cells are bigger in size and that's why you have the larger distribution width. Well, the MCV is the mean corpuscular volume, that means the average size of the red blood cell. The MCH is the mean corpuscular hemoglobin. How much hemoglobin is there in a red blood cell? Those are two important indices, especially the MCV. For example, if you are iron deficient, your MCV will be low. If you have folate deficiency or vitamin B12 deficiency, the MCV will be high. Typically if you're iron deficient, your MCV will be less than 70. If you have a shortage of vitamin B12 or folate, your MCV will be over 110. When you look at the CBC, there are several measures that are there. There is something called the MCHC, which is the mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, which is a fancy description of what the hemoglobin is in any individual red blood cell. There is also something called the MCV, which is the mean corpuscular volume, which says how big the red blood cells are in general. When people are low in iron, which is generally not a problem in myeloma, those cells tend to be small. The body doesn't have enough iron, so it makes teeny tiny cells. If the bone marrow is recovering, then it will often make varying sizes, and then MCV will be getting larger. The RDW, the variation, the red cell diameter width varies, so there will be small ones and big ones. Those numbers are important for your doctor to look at, but much less important on a given level. Really the most important red blood cell parameters are the hemoglobin and the hematocrit, and the others are more fine details to help adjust things. MCHC is not something you should look at. The width of the distribution rate of the red blood cells can tell you something. If you are anemic and the bone marrow is trying very hard to correct that anemia, it will release the red blood cells earlier than if you have a normal hemoglobin. The earlier red blood cells are a little bigger in size, and because they are bigger in size, your distribution range of the red blood cells will be wider.