By way of confirming.
Platelet life: one week. Use or lose. This is one reason some facilities don’t take platelet donations on Friday.
Needle: #17 and on rare occasions #15. I ask this periodically to see if it changes.
Weird – when I used to do pheresis, I had to wait months in between, not days or weeks. I guess maybe they were taking all the blood parts? I am a hard stick and the returns weren’t working out* so I switched to whole blood every eight weeks.
The needles are a good bit bigger than the ones used for a regular blood draw, but I find the thin ones more painful. Maybe it’s because I’m used to the big ones.
- once the tubing even exploded inside the machine. They opened it and there was a bloodbath in there!
It’s sort of the opposite - I’m B+, and they prefer me to donate platelets, since my whole blood would be in lower demand. I would think that O+ would be encouraged to donate whole blood, though they are also on the list for preferred platelet donors - probably because there are so many of them?
Yes, I’m O+ and they would like me to do pheresis, but as above I kept wasting the supplies! They tried again recently to see if anything changed but no go.
Ulf, I donate at the hospital, not at any special center – is there one near you you could try?
I’ve been getting emails about an emergency blood shortage in our area and when I logged in to the donor website this message came up:
Based on your A+ blood type, please consider making a platelet donation.
I see from my history on the site that the last time I donated platelets was 3 years ago and really don’t know if I’m up to doing it again. The last few times I gave whole blood I felt weak and tired for a couple of days, even though my hg and other vital signs are fine and I’m in good health–I don’t know if it’s age (57) or what. And a platelet donation often takes over 3 hours for me and gives me the shakes and foot cramps even when I take extra calcium ahead of time to prepare. It amazes me that some platelet donors can give several times a month–a few times a year was as much as I could ever tolerate.
At least our nearby donor center has lots of different kinds of drinks as well as cookies, chips, and jelly beans.
I’m O+ and they want EVERYTHING from me. They ask if I can do platelets if they’re low on them.
Anyone here with Hemochromatosis? I would like to hear your experience in “donating” blood. :smack: