Is there a way to check what type of blood you have at home?

[GigaCluster]

I heard that back in the day high school students often did an experiment in their Chemistry lab, checking their own blood type.
I wonder, how does that work? Does anyone know?
If I want to find out what my blood type is without paying a visit to my doctor, how could I do it at home, provided that I can safely extract some blood from myself?

Thanks.

 

[Moonbeam]

"Is there a way to check what type of blood you have at home?"

Man are you wierd or related to jhu. What are you doing with blood at home and why do you need to check it?

 

[goob2k]

Go to a blood bank.

Let them siphon you and they will tell you what blood type you have plus you get to do your good deed for the day. On top of that, it's FREE.

 

[cjchaps]

Usually if you donate blood they do tests on it, and will send you something telling you what type of blood you have. It's also free.

 

[DarkLight]

If its blue your probably human if its red your probably bleeding.

 

[Gunbuster]

No doubt they have a handy dandy home test in Japan


/me has watched too much anime

 

[kgraeme]

Basic steps:

1. Poke your finger. (If you're cool, you use a Lancet)
2. Put some blood from finger on a slide.
3. Look at slide with microscope.
4. Have no clue what you are looking at and ask the science teacher for help.

Newton's Apple lesson

PDF on forensic techniques to match blood type in murder cases

A little better description of the process.

 

[Talon]

There are kits that could be for home use. Just do a search for Home Blood Typing Tests. They look and work like this. I don't know how accurate they are or how you determine a quality test kit. You might try a medical supply store.

 

[kgraeme]

Talon, thanks for posting that. I was beginning to think there was some AIDS-era conspiracy going on to prevent people from learning how to do this. I mean, I did this back in school, but I hear that schools can't do it now that they have to worry about blood infections. And looking around just now, I couldn't find anything that really described in detail the steps to do it. It's like there is now a proscription on this knowledge.

(I don't really believe in conspiracies, but it was mighty freaky just looking around and not finding stuff.)

 

[jhu]

all you need is a tube of anti-a antibody and a tube of anti-b antibody. both should be flourescent. put your blood in both and see, take a sample out on a slide and see if it glows in the dark. or you could get bitten by our resident vampire moonbeam.

 

[Moonbeam]

Hehe, jhu, I see you found it. Is there a way to test what type of blood you have at home? Sure, but it's lible to spoil if I take it out of the frig.