I give pretty frequently, and the last time I gave (just a couple of weeks ago) was here at my job. They’re fairly desperate for blood, and were grateful for my type A. I imagine they’d be interest in any type, because if you donate your AB they can give it to some AB receibver and free up that type A from me to some type A receiver instead of the AB patient.
Also consider platelet apheresis. That’s what I do, as I’m A+, which is dead common. As Antigen says, each donation of whole blood is separated out into components, platelets being one. But it takes platelets from **eight ** units of whole blood to make one unit of platelets. That means eight times the chances that there is something in the unit of platelets that the patient will react badly to. So they prefer strongly to give donations of platelets gathered through apheresis to giving platelets made from combining eight whole-blood extractions.
This thread saddens me, because I used to love giving blood. I gave platelets about every three weeks. The Red Cross ladies (they were almost always women) were happy to see me and made me feel good about myself. And I got an hour to just sit in that big comfy chair and relax. It was like meditation, only with an actual benefit to someone else. Giving platelets made me happy.
Alas, I’m off the list now because I lived in the UK for more than three months. The last time I checked (just now), that now disqualifies you because of the threat of Mad Cow Disease. Darn it! I wanna give blood again!
Giving at work is great, for the reasons listed above. What I hate about work blood drives, though, is that the clown who is usually in charge of getting volunteers feels it necessary to personally visit your desk and pressure you to volunteer. Invariably, when I sheepishly say, “Sorry,” the reply is “Why not?” I always want to blurt out, “It’s none of your fucking business!” I mean, maybe I have a tranmissable disease I don’t want to announce in front of my co-workers. It’s a personal decision, you creep.
Sorry for that brief outbusrt. Anyway, robardin, I hope you decide to give.
I’ve only done it once, but I’m at the extreme low end of the weight limit (I think I might be a bit below it now, I know I’ve lost a bit of weight) so I probably won’t again. I didn’t feel well at all for a day afterwards, but since I’d gotten a pint once during a childhood surgery I feel like I gave back the one I owed.
My brother is AB+ as well. Or at least he’s AB something. I’m A+, nothing unusual there, but they were more than happy to drain me. And I got a really nice duffel bag out of it, that I use when I travel.
Please go ahead and donate. Here’s a nice selfish reason - donate right before a meeting you don’t really want to attend, and blow off the meeting. If your boss gives you crap about it, just point to the band-aid on your arm and say “Sorry, I was busy saving lives today.”
Your arm really shouldn’t feel sore afterward. From your Op I gather that your arm has never been needled by a professional nurse. Professial nurses are really good at handling the needle so there will be minimal discomfort,. Say four minutes afterwards. After all, they do it all day, all week, for years.
I’ve donated blood for years, but stopped when I was trying to get pregnant. It’s a good thing and you get a really good warm altruistic feeling afterwards.
Please do donate. There are very, very few things you can do which cost you less while benefitting others more.
You are excuse-making, but you know, you don’t have to give blood. That whole “volunteer” part means just that - volunteer. You don’t have to. And if you don’t, you don’t have to tell your reason(s) to anyone.
But, of course, most of us will think better of you if you do.
Quick hijack -
I am going to donate for the first time ever this weekend. Do I need to know my blood type beforehand?
If it’s the same as in the Netherlands, they will use the first time to determine both your blood type and some relevant aspects of your general health. So no.
I can’t give blood in the US because I live in the Netherlands (mad cow); and I have to wait for specific time windows to donate in the Netherlands because I visit the US (west nile). I’m a regular disease vector, me.
I also squeak right under the weight guidelines with my shoes on, but I have to say, I have never had any adverse effects because of that. I can get up off the chair and go dance all night. I quit giving blood for some years due to pregnancy and whatnot, and I feared that at my advanced age I might now have some symptoms as my weight has not changed – just, er, redistributed in the most disconcerting ways. But it didn’t make any difference, I still get up from giving blood and bicycle home.
I can’t give platlets any more because you have to go to another city to do that and I have no Dutch driver’s license. If I ever do get one I expect I’ll go back to that.
Anyway, just do it. You will probably find that the arm pain doesn’t happen the next time.
I have a tendency towards wonky blood sugar. I find it very helpful to have a glass of juice *before * donating as well as after.
I also take a daily multivitamin with iron (Women’s One a Day) otherwise I’m typically turned down for low iron.
As long as I remember my vitamins and juice up, donation isn’t a problem. When I don’t, I either get turned down or attempt to pass out.
Give blood for warm fuzzies and donuts! (but not fuzzy donuts)
Yeah…it’s an excuse. But I know alll about excuses. I don’t do well when being stuck by needles. I usually make it through blood draws for labwork without throwing up, but the nurses move really, really fast. It’s stupid, I know, but well…I don’t know. It just happens.
Regarding the CMV - that’s awesome. CMV is the most common virus in the country, and it can have terrible consequenses for the immunosurpressed. There’s a condition called CMV retinitis that is vision threatening. I remember it pretty much nets you an automatic Opthomalogy consult if someone thinks you have it.
I don’t know if anyone would know the answer to this one. What happens to people who visit the UK and are vegetarians? I’m betting they are still considered a risk, since you only have their word to go off, but it seems like they should, hypothetically, be low risk for Mad Cow.
You’re right, they are hypothetically low for CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease), but just like* people who take anti-malarials and travel to malaria risk areas, they are deferred because of the risk of the place that they travelled to, not because of their personal risk.
*at the blood center I work at, YMMV.
I’m a vegetarian, and I’ve thought about that too. I think I did eat meat maybe twice when I was there. And I imagine that a fair amount of the fried food I ate was fried in beef fat, and I would guess there was beef broth in several things as well (I’m not super-strict, so I rarely bother asking about broth or frying fat). I was there for 10 months, so I dunno. Maybe the cumulative effect was enough. The three month cutoff seems arbitrary to me. But since I know nothing about ensuring the safety of blood products, I’m just taking their word for it.
On the other side, I just barely met the minimum weight for a blood drive when I was in high school. ‘Adverse’ doesn’t begin to describe how I felt afterwards. It took me about half an hour to be able to even sit up without passing out, I was deathly pale and shaky for the rest of the day, and it was about two days until I felt normal again.
Even if I could (which I can’t for at least two reasons), I still wouldn’t donate blood again. I will, however, nag those who have a bit more blood to spare to do so, because it’s a Nice Thing To Do. (Plus, the Red Cross sent me a ‘donor card’ after I donated, lauding me as a “CMV Hero!”, which makes me feel guilty about my inability to donate.)
You could also donate directly to a local hospital and keep them from having to pay the Red Cross for blood. Not that that’s a bad thing, since the ARC has expenses and does get out into the community more, but anyway.
Either way, do it! Our hospital blood donor room gets homemade treats from HS student volunteers. Yum.
You might tell yourself you’d do volunteer work if you had time. Yeah, me too. Giving blood, though, is quick. Every coupla months, you spend twenty minutes lying down, reading a magazine. When you’re done, you’ve saved somebody’s life. How cool is that?
So, go give blood. You’ll have somebody’s undying gratitude. 
Go ahead and give. It will save someone’s life.
A sign at my local RC says that each unit of blood saves 3 lives. While I am sure that’s an average, it does help people.
Look at it this way, the first five gallons are the hardest. After that donating is a piece of cake
-Rick, who is working on gallon #7
A vein? Veins are too slow. Ask them to open an artery instead.