A friend of mine wishes to know if he can give blood. He says that his doctor told him 20 years ago that he could not because he had been treated for genital herpes. Surely nobody would be able to give blood if that were tha case??
I await enlightenment…
No problem. He can go see the vampires without much if any worry.
http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/blood/learn/eligibl.html
I have been donating platelets once a month for about 10 years and just called there to check. The answer is “as long as there are no active leasions, you can donate blood or platelets”
Hope this helps.
I tried to donate for my wife yesterday but was told not to since we plan to have kids again in the future. Something about the antigens or antibodies maybe? This was a new one on me.
What do you mean you tried to donate for your wife?
I donate and plan to have more children also, my wife does not though, she doesn’t do well with needles.
I think he means that his blood would be going into his wife’s system. If it’s future children that lieu is worried about, I suspect it’s an RH mismatch. If I remember correctly, the first time an RH- person is exposed to RH+ blood, there’s no problem, but the second time, there are antibodies built up, so there can be complications. So if Mrs. lieu is RH- and lieu is RH+, this first exposure would give her the antibodies, and if their next kid is positive, then mom’s antibodies could react to the kid’s blood while she’s pregnant.
IANAMD, and anyone who IAMD should feel free to correct any mistakes I made there.
She’s got a scheduled surgery in a couple of weeks and in addition to her donating for herself, I wanted to donate my O+ to be held in reserve for her in case she needs it. However, apparently there’s a problem with her getting my blood and then us conceiving a child.
Yep. The “+” in your O+ means you’re Rh+, so Chronos’s explanation covers it.
I’m pretty sure there’s medication an Rh- woman (like myself) can take to keep her antibodies from attacking an unborn Rh+ child. Or possibly one to keep antibodies from forming. At least, that’s what my (Rh+) mother told me.
– Dragonblink, A-