Home Blood Typing Kit?!

Now if you follow me on twitter you probably think i need to get a hobby and well, a home bio lab is it!

Neither Adam or I know our blood type and especially for Adam possibly crashing again in a rally, its a good thing to know in case of such emergencies... I, on the other hand, was just curious (as with anything weird and medical).

I found home blood typing kits on Amazon and after reading reviews it seemed like people had trouble getting enough blood to get a good result (some honestly made it sound like it was rocket science) and ended up having to retake them so i bought us two each, knowing I could easily sell them on/ gift them to friends and family if they weren't needed.

Each little pack comes sealed with everything you need to safely test your blood type at home and full instructions that make it really quite easy. I set up our bio lab in the kitchen this morning and tested mine first.

The only thing you need to provide for yourself is a glass of water; i used filtered, i don't know if it makes a difference though.

The steps are essentially as follows-

1. Add 1 drop of water to each circle on the eldon card
2. Wipe your finger with the alcohol wipe and prick it with the lancet, this didn't hurt at all
3. Use an eldon stick to transfer blood to each circle and stir it into the water droplet, using a new stick for each circle
4. Tilt card almost upright for 10 sec, 90 degrees for 10 sec, another 90 degrees for 10 sec, another 90 degrees for 10 sec and then lay it flat

By this time your blood should have reacted and you can compare your results with the key on the instructions.

I found this one online from Health Management Systems.

(they also list all instructions on their site)

As you can see from my results, the Anti-D has reacted and so I am O+, just as my 23 and me prediction had said.

After seeing how easy it was and knowing the pricker didn't hurt, Adam then let me test his and got the same result! (O+ is the most common blood type so it was no surprise)

I found some info on my blood type at OneBlood.org

Knowing how many people can take O+ blood really makes me want to look into donating more (Michigan won't take blood from people who were in the UK and some of Europe during the period of Mad Cow outbreaks, unfortunately) and maybe also get on the bone marrow donor list (matched via blood typing before they actually take marrow).

Really this test was VERY easy, the longest part was reading the instructions and results are ready in 40 sec but you can tell before that it seems. 

Any way, hope you enjoyed my home blood test review and i'll leave you with the aftermath photo.

Labels amazon blood donor blood type bone marrow donor eldon home blood typing O+