I’ve got 48 donations (O+), but I don’t know how that crappy imperial measurement system works.
Hmm. I’ve given blood four times. The first was for a diabetes study a grad student was running… (my brother is diabetic, I’m not), where I was really really squemish, and felt like I was being baby-sat all the time. Same for my first donation… not so much my second. My third wasn’t so bad, but felt worse 'cause it was for work and everybody was there… :o and now I’ve been to Mad Cow™ bearing countries too often, and can’t donate. 
Which is weird, 'cause people from GB give blood all the time…
Lemme know when I can donate again. I’ll blow the dust off my card and be there. 
My only problem with donating (besides the squirming), is when the place is out of lancets and uses the old manual-metal-pokie-thing in the finger. Eek!
They won’t take mine, because I sleep with men (who sleep with men). Faced with the dilemma of figuring out whether or not lying on your application to donate blood cancels out the good karma obtained from donating blood, I decided that veracity was the better part of valor and they told me “No thanks”.
The ironic thing was that the gay community, pre-AIDS, was one of the most consistent and constant segments for blood donation (according to, IIRC, Randy Shilts in “And the Band Played On”).
Canadian Blood Services employee here. All of you donors, Thank you!!! I know people who have benefitted from your kind gestures, ad you really do save a life every time you give.
I would like to address some of the concerns (I feel like I can speak for the US Red Cross for this too as it is close to the same). The long list of questions may be annoying to do every time, but it is for a reason. Sometimes people have their memory jogged of something forgotten that can make them ineligible. Better to catch it there than later. There are other reasons too, but this is a necessary evil, and we thank you for putting up with it. It is appreciated.
Secondly, if you have been barred from donating for travel restrictions, sexual past, drug history, etc, please please please do not take it personally. It is done for the safety of the recipient, and also for cost.
It costs well over $400CDN ($300US) to process ONE donation from start to finish, including all the testing etc. When you seethe 4 sample test tubes taken from the unit it is for all of the rigorous testing. What happens is that 20 units (give or take) of the same blood type have their test tubes tested mixed together. This process is so much more efficient (yet still has huge costs as above). When there is a postitive indicator for a test in any given batch, each unit is tested again individually to determine the culprit (another test tube). This costs $400 each again for $8000. As you can see, it becomes very costly when this happens. Testing each unit separately would bankrupt the system. One of the best ways to bring down costs, yet maintain the safety levels is to play percentages, and stop people from donating before they start based on certain critereon.
The other reason, the main reason, is safety. We want to ensure the safest blood supply possible. Would you want to live with yourself knowing that you gave someone tainted blood?
So, please, do not feel offended if you are told that you are ineligible to donate. We really do have everyone’s best interests at heart, and we do appreciate the fact that you wanted to give of yourself for such a worthy cause. Rules also change all the time. Check back every so often if you still wish to donate. You may be eligible agian. If you have questions, ask. That is why the nurses are there.
All I ask is that if you are barred from donating, please do not discourage others from doing so, or using such a venue for your own vendettas. Everyone who gives, or wants to give is doing a wonderful, and very necessary service. Also, if you are not able to donate and wish to help, why not see if you can volunteer? People pouring juice, drivers to pick up donors, etc, are always welcomed.
Cheers.
I just hate the fact that they won’t take my blood.
I mean, really now! I am offering them perfectly good blood. It works just freakin’ fine for me. It keeps my heart a tickin’ and my brain a functionin’. It’s. Just. Dandy.
Yet every time I go in, they give me one of those iron tests. It’s standard procedute. And, since I’ve started college, they’ve–with one exception–been low.
The first couple weren’t so bad–I was at 37. I pleaded with them to take my blood; after all, it’s only one point off. I’m sure whoever gets the blood isn’t going to complain. No dice.
The third one, I managed to scrape through. It wasn’t through Red Cross, though–I wondered if their standard was a point lower. No matter; I gave blood! I helped out. Go me! My blood is acceptable!
Then I tried again. The last two times, I’ve been abysmally low. 34 and 32. I’m thinking of taking iron supplements. I wonder if this means I’m anemic. I really hope it doesn’t; I don’t like red meat very much.
Stupid Red Cross. Won’t take my blood. Tells me I’m anemic. Piffle.
I’ve considered donating plasma immediately before donating blood, as that would possibly increase the proportion of hemoglobin to plasma. However, the nearest plasma donation center is in Gary. I’m not driving into Gary to give away my bodily fluids. That’s kind of like delibrately visiting Hell (or, worse, the Dr. Laura show) just to have the opportunity to get flogged.
My mother had low iron levels at the donation clinic a while back. She started eating lots of spinach. Given that you don’t like red meat, perhaps you’d like that. I know I didn’t find it very appealing. :dubious:
Waaa.
I spent two years in England in the middle 1980’s, serving our country.
I might as well have alien ichor running in my veins.
Angel as I’ve said, I’m a regular donor, I but get turned away every so often for low iron. I’ve learned to take vitamins and watch my diet the week before I go in (lots of greens!) and I usually don’t have any trouble.
The Red Cross (for whom I used to work, setting up blood drives – oh, the irony) notified me five years ago that I had tested positive for Hepatitis C. I had donated at work, and got a letter in the mail a couple of weeks later.
I was more curious than anything, because I had absolutely no risk behaviors that would cause me to believe I had Hep C. So I went to my doctor, and had him do the test. Negative. Just to be safe, I went to my local hospital and got tested again (Hep C is a nasty, nasty disease; no sense taking chances). Negative.
So I called the Red Cross and said, “Hey, I got a false positive on your Hep C test.” They were nice about it, but firm: I could not donate to them ever again. I offered to send them copies of the two independent tests, showing I didn’t have the disease. Still no dice. The only way they’ll allow me to donate to them again is if they change their testing protocols, which doesn’t happen very often.
Frustrating, to say the least. I want to help, but I can’t.
And the plasma center will tell you that you have low iron levels and turn you away. I think the reason they don’t want you to give blood is not because of what the blood may do to others, but what the loss of blood may do to you.
I have low(borderline) iron levels. Last time I went to give blood they stuck me twice (first time it was too low, they checked my other finger), and I was barely there. Iron loss affected me in no way (they thought I was going to faint), I just kept asking for juice and cookies.
Oh, and the plasma center… I give plasma, twice a week. No matter how hard I try, my levels don’t go above 46. I know once my blood was lower than the standard (38). The only reason I was allowed to donate (and with a speech given) was because those that take the test knew me already. If I had have the low iron levels when I was starting, they would probably turned me away (as they have done on occasion).
I feel for you lno. It’s kinda like having four Canadian dollars, huh?
Nanoda- although there is a lot of Iron IN spinach, it turns out that it is not of a sort that is available for human absorption. Thus, as far as building up her blood iron- she is wasting her time with spinach.
I have A-, which is somewhat rare & needed- thus I donated- not like you guys do, but about twice a year when they came by work. Somewhere along the line, some test came back with some sort of indicator for Hepatitis- which of course scared me shitless. Never mind that in two comprehensive physicals where I asked that they check carefully for Hep- and the results were not only negative, but in the second one my Doc said “they’re crazy”. But no, that one test being a “positive” means that they will never, ever take my blood again. Of course, the concept of a “false positive” couldn’t occur to them. Fuck em.
Screw the Red Cross, the bastards. I made the mistake of becoming one of their CPR instructors (since I donate the heart lube to lifesource locally) and once we were through with class and hit the streets, I discovered that the CPR classes I was to host made me little more than a schill for the horribly expensive product they’re hawking. Sonsabitches.
Re-read my above post on cost of testing and try to undersatnd why a flase positive is prohibitively expensive. Every time you donate now, you potentially cost 20x as much as another donor, for blood that cannot be used. That is why. It is nothing personal. It is trying to preserve a cost effective system to benefit the greater good.
CuriousCanuck, I could understand that rationale if there was a false positive everytime DrDeth donated, but if it was a one time oddity and there is outside corroboration (2 times, no less) that it was a mistake, then why not allow him to donate once again? If there was another false positive thereafter, I could understand a lifetime ban, but if there wasn’t, and DrDeth became a regular 56-dayer, think of how many lives could be saved and enriched by his donations!
I can no longer donate because my husband and I found out a couple of years ago that one of the women he had sex with prior to our marriage was a drug-user at the time of their relationship, and had prostituted herself on occasion. Though she is healthy and both my husband and I are healthy, if I am truthful on the forms, I am now banned. I find it completely bizarre that this new label of “unacceptable risk” is not based upon any actual health-related ramifications of my husband’s brief relationship, but upon my knowledge of it. Had we not run into this woman at a wedding at which time she shared her happiness at successfully turning her life around from what it had been, I would have never known and I would still be giving blood now.
Last time I donated, I asked what the Red Cross would do if you accidentally picked the “do not use my blood” bar code sticker. Would that blacklist your blood forever? (I’ve never done it, but I was just wondering)
The response was that if you make the same mistake three times, you will indeed be blacklisted for life.
BrotherCadfael: I was not sure how to respond, so I went andtalked to the appropriate people, and they assured me that (at least for Canadian Blood Services) this is not the case. If you pick the “no” sticker, your unit is flagged riught away and is not even tested (cost reasons - see my original cost post above) since putting a likely positive into the testing and contaminating other test samples is a lot more resource intensive when the blood will not even be used.
If you said no 100 times in a row, and on the 101st time you said yes, your blood would be tested, and if it was fine, released into inventory. You will never be blacklisted for life based solely on the sticker you choose.
tlw: when a false postivie test results, it is generally from a marker that will not change and will always trigger a false positive. The tests that doctors do on blood, and tests that the blood centres do have differnet levels of sensitivity. Some tests that we do are so sensitive that certain people’s blood will always trigger that result. The fact that we do not let these people try again is through experience, and the knowing through the original testing the exact reasons why the result was triggered, and the knowledge that it will happen again. The “If there was another false positive thereafter…” does not apply, since we know after the first test that this will occur again.
Also, the testing we do, at the levels of sensitivity we do them at is to catch as many positives as we can, thereby making the blood supply safer. No positive test result is a good result (and thusly we have to be extremely sensitive in the testing to ensure everyone is caught). I hope that clears up the reasoning why one false positive is all it takes.
That is incorrect. Your knowledge of it has brought “health-related ramifications” to light.
Again, I want to say that every donor or potential donor is very much appreciated. If you are deferred please do not take it personally, we do have the public’s best interests in mind. Also, please do not discourage others from donating. (not saying that anyone here has done that).
If you have any other questions/commetns for me, let me know. 
Cheers.
To a certain extent, this is incorrect. When my blood tested positive for Hep C, I called the head of the lab in Alabama about the result. (Part of the benefit of once working for the Red Cross was knowing who to call about this.) She said that the likely trigger for the false positive in my case was my recent weight loss and improved physical health. (I’d been jogging and watching my diet at the time, and dropped 40 pounds in a year.) As a result, she said I likely had a higher level of … protein? enzyme? I forget what, exactly. But she said an elevated level of that marker was likely what triggered the false positive. She also said that once my body had adjusted to its new fitness level, the whatever-it-was would be at more appropriate levels and wouldn’t trigger the test.
I understand the need to have hypersensitive tests when it comes to something like blood donation. But a lifetime ban on donating in situations such as mine makes no sense whatsoever.
What Sauron sez is about what they told me. There was some sort of marker that indicates possible/probable Hep C, and I was “borderline”. When my MD actually tested for Hep- the answer was “no”, but they wouldn’t accept this, or agree to do further tests.