Nitpick: We have to follow FDA regulations on this, and there are plenty of us who are unhappy about that…
And as to the question of whether it hurts, there has been some confusion in this thread, which I’ll try to sort out.
A marrow biopsy CAN hurt, I’m told, depending on the skill of the doctor doing it and other factors. (I’ve never had one done, but I’ve seen the needles, so I know it’s not a walk in the park, that’s for sure.) **We don’t do marrow biopsies **to people signing up to be volunteer donors. We take a swab of the inner cheek with a Q-tip to collect DNA that is sent to a lab. After we get the results, we enter that information on our computers and you sit back and await our call if you are ever matched with a searching patient (about a 1 in 250 chance at the moment).
The poster who had a marrow biopsy did so for some other medical reason where a doctor treating him or her needed to know exactly how the marrow was functioning. If you match, and want to donate, we don’t need to check your marrow to such a degree that we need to do a biopsy. We **do **examine your blood, via a 100ml or so blood draw, to:[ul]
[li]Test for infectious diseases that could harm the intended recipient[/li][li]Double check that you are a true match with the intended recipient (this is critical)[/li][li]See if your white and red blood cells and platelets in your blood are normal in quality and quantity[/li][/ul]As for that last point, if all your blood cells are healthy and numerous, we assume your marrow (which makes these cells) is fine, too.
If you do agree to donate marrow, you are fully informed about the procedure, and you are given a thorough medical exam to ensure you are fit enough to donate. (As I mentioned earlier, lower back problems are a big no-no.) So, if we do extract marrow from your hip bones, you will get sufficient anesthesia to keep you from feeling pain during the procedure. But, as one poster said, you’ll need a day or two to recover ('cause your butt will be sore), and you should hold off on running that marathon for at least a week.
So, the bottom line is this:
To *join *the NMDP Registry = *no *physical pain
To *donate *marrow (or blood stem cells) = *some *physical pain (as described above)
Actually, I was contacted by the C.W. Bill Young Department of Defense Marrow Donor Program, so I don’t know if that makes a difference. I’m almost positive that they said they were going to conduct further testing on my sample of whatever they have on hand, and then get back to me later. I did take the call at 10am, which is very, very late for me since I work nights, so its very likely I have no idea what is actually going on.
Oh, and I hadn’t kept up my records… They just had my parents number, and the parents got in touch with me… Trust me, I likely forgot I volunteered 10 minutes after I did so. (I’m not used to such an outpouring, so this is my feeble attempt to balance it out a bit. ;))
I have had a bone marrow test done, and the doctor had told me beforehand that I would be given an anesthetic so that I wouldn’t remember anything. HA!:mad: I remember him pounding on my hip with what felt like a hammer and chisel, and muttering about having such hard bones. It didn’t really hurt, but I could feel the pressure from the blows. I lifted up my head and said, “Maybe it was all the milk I drank as a kid.” He about fell over, as he clearly thought I was under the drugs. Then when he sucked out the marrow with a needle, I thought he was pouring acid in my hip. It burned like crazy, and I yelped. And yes. I do remember everything.