Say if I decided that, starting tomorrow, every day I would cut myself and drink a litre of my own blood. How should I supplement my diet so that my health stays relatively normal? Should I be getting more iron? more fluids? more calories in general?
Disclaimer: I’m not about to start drinking my own blood.
A liter of your own blood a day?
5 liters in 5 days seems a pretty hefty load on your bone marrow rbc production.
It’d probably kill you.
generally speaking your stomach does not like having blood in it. bleeding into your stomach can cause violent vomiting. i’d venture to say you’d have a difficult time drinking an entire L of blood without vomiting.
Aren’t there Africans who drink cow blood as a major part of their diet?
I would think your vomiting because of an ulcer, not because of the blood.
Don’t forget you will need folate and B12 to make all those new red cells. It isn’t just the iron.
Maybe half a pint a day, but a liter? I don’t think you could handle that much blood loss without causing a medical emergency.
Err, to clarify you could probably handle a liter, and maybe another liter the next day, but my guess is that on the third day you’d pass out while bleeding yourself.
I am not a doctor, just a WAG based on massive bleeding/donation experience
nausea and vomiting are common when blood is present in the stomach. one of the common causes is a nosebleed. if the blood drains down your throat into your stomach (ie – head tilted back) vomiting frequently occures. ulcers or esophagial bleeding also can drain into the stomach and vomiting ensues.
here’s a link to that info
http://familydoctor.org/132.xml
as far as blood being in someone’s diet, I don’t know if animal blood makes difference, or if your stomach can become accustomed to the presence of blood.