Can enlarged red blood cells get stuck in veins or arteries causing possible stroke or other problems?
Miss P – The answer is NO. Red blood cells circulating in our body range from 70 to about 120 cubic millimeters. Because they do not have a firm nucleus, they can easily squeeze through the smallest blood vessels, the capillaries, that connect from small arteries to small veins. The only red blood cells that do sometimes get stuck in the capillaries do so in sickle cell anemia where the red cells may be irregular shaped, like a quarter-moon in the sky ( sickle) with sharp pointed ends. That could and has caused major problems in sickle cell disease.
