understanding my Lotus plastic syndromes or MDS my Lotus plastic syndromes or MDS is a group of bone marrow failure disorders in which the bone marrow does not produce enough healthy blood cells doctors consider MDS a form of blood cancer it can turn into leukemia if it gets worse bone marrow is the tissue in your bones that makes blood cells healthy bone marrow makes immature cells called stem cells these normally mature in two different kinds of blood cells red blood cells which carry oxygen around the body white blood cells which help fight infection and platelets which help stop bleeding after injury in MDS the stem cells may stay as immature cells called blasts or they may develop abnormally this results in your body having too few healthy mature blood cells to function well doctors call having too few healthy blood cells cytokine eeya more specifically having too few red blood cells is called anemia having too few white blood cells is called neutropenia and having too few platelets is thrombocytopenia MDS happens when something affects the bone marrow cells changing your DNA's instructions for making blood cells doctors often don't know what affects the cells to cause MDS MDS is most common in people over 65 but younger people sometimes get MDS men are more likely to get MDS than women certain factors can increase the risk for MDS including being over 60 previous chemotherapy or radiation exposure to certain chemicals and smoking the symptoms of MDS vary from person to person and depend on which blood cells are low symptoms may include fatigue shortness of breath or your heart skipping beats fever or infections that won't go away and bleeding or bruising easily some people have no symptoms when they are diagnosed with MDS your doctor might find that you have MDS after a routine blood test called a complete blood count this counts the number of red and white blood cells and platelets MDS is very rarely inherited it is unusual to find two people with MDS in the same family even if they are close relatives however MDS is related to your genes genes contain DNA the instructions that tell your body how to make different cells if something changes your DNA the cells it makes might be abnormal there is no specific way to prevent MDS but there are things you can do that might lower your risk these include not smoking avoiding benzene and other cancer-causing chemicals avoiding heavy metals such as lead and Mercury and avoiding radiation and certain chemotherapy drugs if possible ask your doctor about factors that increase your MDS risk there are several types of MDS doctors determine the type based on what the abnormal cells look like and the number of abnormal cells blasts and genetic abnormalities if your MDS progresses your MDS type may change it is very important to ask your doctor to explain which type of MDS you have doctors use a scoring system to classify the severity of MDS the score is based on the percentage of blast cells in the bone marrow and what types of abnormal cells and gene changes are present there are five severity categories from very low to very high if your MDS score is low or very low you may not need treatment for years if it is intermediate high or very high you need treatment possibly right away about 30 percent of people with MDS get a life threatening cancer called acute myeloid leukemia or AML if your MDS risk is intermediate or high chemotherapy may help prevent this with high or very high risk scores may live just a year or two without treatment people with lower risk scores have a better prognosis or outlook your symptom level can also affect your MDS prognosis MDS is very different from person to person so learning your type and risk group is important the more you know the better decisions you can make about treatment you