I am scheduled to donate blood in the morning. The blood is for an upcoming surgery I’m due to have soon. However tonight I have a low-grade fever and I’m generally feeling pretty crappy. My question is can I still donate blood tomorrow? What if I’m feeling better?
I have great faith in fools, self-confidence my friends call it.—
Edgar Allan Poe
Sorry not to be able to answer your question Qwisp. There are too many variables. If the timing allows it, I would try to call the donor center in the morning before going in.
Hope you feel better!
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Qwisp
I’m in the same situation as you are. Only about 2weeks ahead.
My surgery is tomorrow.
The bloodbank people will ask you lots of questions. Mostly about your sexual preferences.Really.It got to be funny how many ways they asked the same question.
I had a minor sore throat when I gave. I decided it was probably sinus.
They agreed.
I also had a tiny fever. 98.8.
They decided it was not a problem.
I gave another unit last tuesday and the sore throat was gone. My temp was 98.2.
My blood pressure was a little high the first time.
It was fine last tuesday. Nervous. Not Me.
I’m now trying to stay up late so I will just go to sleep tomorrow.
Well thats all I can contribute.
Good Luck
Having donated blood on lots of occasions, there are a number of reasons they might not take your blood, mostly related to disease risk. For instance, after I had travelled to malaria areas, I couldn’t donate blood for about a year. Similarly, all the questions trying to ascertain AIDS risk (although they will test the blood for AIDS in any case, but the questions are designed to help determine the likelihood.)
Other reasons for not letting someone donate include low iron content in the blood.
In your case, since you are donating blood for yourself, I would imagine that some of the risk factors are irrelevant: if you are HIV positive, for instance, you won’t get any worse by having your own blood injected back in you. On the other hand, if they don’t need to give you your own blood, they probably won’t want it to be wasted, and so it might be used for someone else (hence the testing? – my hypothesis.)
If you are really sick (fever, etc), they probably would delay taking the blood.
Good luck!
No, I don’t think the docs would want to inject your own HIV infected blood into you following surgery…
But of course, inform the blood people how you feel & they should know just what you can do. ALso, let us know so we don’t have to wait forever wondering.
Fever generally means infection, and as previously mentioned you’re not at risk from your own blood (unless the infection clears up and the surgery leaves you immunocompromised). Many surgery units are fans of pre-op antibiotic drips for prophylaxis anyway.
Processing requirements for self-directed blood vary from normal donations. As mentioned in a recent thread, most blood is centrifuged immediately and stored as packed cells and other components. It seems unlikely your blood would go to anyone else if unused because they’ll minimally process it and its shelf life might be little more than the time till your surgery.
Can’t seem to get to our local blood center’s Web site for blood shelf life facts to support the above, sorry.
Sure, I’m all for moderation – as long as it’s not excessive.
I was feeling better this morning.No fever.
When I arrived at the blood bank I was asked to fill out a really short form. It asked whether or not I was HIV positive if I had shortness of breath or whether I had any known infections. There were no other questions asked of me. They did take my blood pressure and my temperature. Everything went well. The only problem was after I was done they inadvertently showed me the needle they used. I really didn’t want to see it, because I still have to donate one more time. Ouch. Thanks all for replying, I had no idea what to expect.
Justwannano, I hope your surgery goes well, and I wish you the best of luck and best wishes on a speedy recovery!!
I have great faith in fools, self-confidence my friends call it.—
Edgar Allan Poe
I have a question that relates to the topic. I hope you don’t mind if I ask it here in this thread.
A friend of mine at work (who happens to be gay) told me that you cannot donate blood if you are a homosexual man. He said he had tried to donate a few times and, based on questions about his lifestyle, they denied him each time. He finally gave up trying altogether. WTF??? Is it true? Homosexual men can never donate (I mean, assuming they don’t “turn straight” or some such nonsense)? It seems to me that the more people that donate, the better. I’m sure that there are extremely few people in the world that would donate if they knew that their blood was tainted.
I was asked nothing about my lifestyle. I’m assuming it was probably because I was donating to myself (the fine print did say if I didn’t use it they could dispose of it as they saw fit) They also might not have asked because my husband was right there, and if I was carrying on a different lifestyle behind his back I would have lied anyway.
I have great faith in fools, self-confidence my friends call it.—
Edgar Allan Poe
I was asked if I had ever had sex with another man even once. Also, did I ever have sex with a prostitute or trade sex for drugs.
Am I the only one they ask?
I think they ask everyone. My point is that for quite a few men, having sex with a man is something they do on a regualar basis. So, do they exclude EVERY homosexual man based on the answer to that question? Even if the stats say that people with that lifestyle are at a higher risk of HIV or whatever (and I don’t know if that stat still even holds true), obviously not every homosexual male has HIV.
The ban on homosexuals donating blood dates back 10-15 years. At that time, the HIV infection rate amoung homosexual men was much higher than in the general population. I don’t know how old you are, but contaminated blood supplies were a nightmare in the early eighties when AIDS first attained widespread public atttention. The fact that the US took rapid, heavy handed steps to insure that that blood supply was safe prevented what was a tragedy from becoming a diaster. France did not take the same stringent steps and many people died there who needn’t have.
We are deliberatly overcautious with our blood supply. You cannot donate blood if you have ever had chemo, radiation, or any number of diseases orif you have even come in contact with potential vectors of those diseases. You can not be on any drugs at all. Yes, many potential doners are turned away whose blood is perfectly harmless. On the other hand, our blood supply is remarkably safe (Now that we can test for hepatitas C). I imagine the ban on homosexuals donating will eventually be lifted, but not until it is considerably more obsolete than it is now. This is not because of homophobia, but merely because of the extreme caution taken in all maters regarding preserving a safe blood supply.
Even for autologous transfusions (Blood you donate is transfused back into you if you need it), they will not draw your blood if you are running a fever, because
a) the blood may contain a virus that could be transfused back into you and cause and least a temporary fever (hopefully, you’d have protective antibodies by then).
b) if an apparently minor illness were to be the early stages of a serious illness, you would be far better off to keep the blood.
Blood collected for autologous transfusions is wasted if you don’t need it. It is not put into the general pool of blood to be given to whoever needs it.
Homosexuals, or anyone who has had more than x number of partners in y period of time, are excluded because of the higher-than-average probability of being in the window where they have circulating HIV virus in their blood, but no detectable anti-HIV antibodies yet. Unfortunately, there have been multiple cases where HIV-infected individuals have become so enraged at their fate that they deliberately set out to take as many other people out with them as they can. Not that they wouldn’t be smart enough to claim to be straight if they tried to donate blood…
Pressure from friends, spouses, etc. is one reason why
a) Directed donations are no longer taken. When Grandpa Jones is near death & needing transfusions is not the time most people would choose to explain why they are still single at 35… An exception is made for parents wishing to donate to their children; generally though the parents must request to do so; health care personnel will not suggest it.
b) Many donor centers have a final check point where the donor gets to put a bar coded sticker on their bag of blood. There is a question that asks if there is any reason why this unit should not be administered into a patient with different stickers for YES and NO answers. If you choose the NO sticker, no one will realize it until the blood is being processed, at which point it will be discarded. This puts the blood drive personnel at slightly increased risk from needle stick injuries, but keeps people feeling pressured in to donating from transmitting a life-threatening infection.
Glad you’re feeling better Qwisp! And a speedy recovery to you & justwannano for your upcoming procedures.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
I donate once every two months.
The questions have changed over time, but one standard for quite some time has been: “If you’re a man, have you had sex with another man, even once, since 1977?” Answering yes does, I believe, disqualify you from donating.
So gay men may not donate, uness they’ve been celibate for the past twenty-three years, which is, I assume, a way of life that would suck.
Other disqualifying questions: “Have you ever exchanged money or drugs for sex?” “Have you, even once, had sex with someone who has traded money or drugs for sex?”
There is, at least on the Red Cross standard form as of 2-23-00, no question concerning the number of partners you’ve had.
There are also a number of questions that do not immediately disqualify you, but warrant more investigation. For example, one of the questions is, “Have you traveled outside the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom during the past twelve months?” When I donated in February, I was about to leave for the Dominican Republic. Curious, I asked if that trip would keep me off the table for the next year. The interviewer asked where I was going in the DR, checked her book, and responded that Santo Domingo was all right; I could still donate. As was suggested in a post above, the idea is to screen for possible malarial contamination.