I’ve made many whole blood donations before, but now they’re asking for a double red cell blood donation. In this procedure they extract all the red blood cells from two pints of blood, while replacing the volume, rather than taking one pint of blood and not replacing anything.
What I’ve found online talks about physical performance after whole blood donation, and seems mostly sensitive to lost volume in the short term.
But I’m wondering what will happen to my aerobic capacity after a double red cell donation, given that it is the red cells that carry oxygen, and it takes up to 59 days to replace them (much longer than the 2 or 3 days to make up lost volume). I’m not finding much about this, and have never lost this many red cells at once.
I love hiking and schedule hikes with a friend. Am I going to spend a month unable to keep up on the hills? I’m fairly old and overweight, so I’d hate to lose much of what performance I do have!
Aspheresis is my preferred donation method. Cuts in half the number of times I have to remember and schedule to go in and donate. After the night of, I have never given it a second thought or noticed anything that would cause me to link back to the donation. I live my life starting the next day as if I hadn’t donated. Except for a bandage on the elbow and maybe a bit of a bruise I have never noticed it but for the one time my elbow swelled for a few days. Then again I am not training for a marathon or doing any other strenuous physical activity, just weekend athlete type stuff.
Giving blood reduces red blood cell count, hemoglobin, and serrum ferritin levels. All of these reduce athletic performance. Double red blood cell donation likely reduces these further than donating whole blood.
However, hiking is not usually an activity that pushes aerobic capacity to its limit. Depending on how hard the hikes are you may not feel it.
That depends on the hiker and the hike, especially if you go to altitude where the missing red blood cells will be felt. A lot of my hiking is strenuous and fast paced, and I notice the impact if I’ve given blood recently.
I am no longer a whole blood donor. Why? Because I experienced significant reduction in my stamina for a few days after a whole blood donation. So I think puddleglum is spot-on.
I switched to apheresis donations like PoppaSan. My usual donation is two units. A double product donation condemns the rest of my day to a nap. (Which is why I donate late in the afternoon.) But by the next morning I’m back in the pink.
On rare occasions the folks at the blood bank ask for a double product plus a unit of plasma. Doing so requires a stay in the on-site recovery area for an hour so I’m not dizzy driving home. As far as I’m concerned, the human body reacts poorly when deprived of “precious bodily fluids.”