I never thought about it before on the occasions I’ve given blood over the years, but my wife just asked me: Am I now more prone to infection? After all, my white blood cell count has presumably dropped by about 1/12. How does this affect my immune response?
It doesn’t, unless you’re immunocompromised somehow by a separate disease process such as HIV, or are on immunosuppressants from transplantation or other reasons. You’ve got lots of white blood cells ready to roll in your bone marrow, to take up any slack.
QtM, MD
gratzi. No worries, then.
Now I only have to worry about the tests revealing that I’ve been unwittingly carrying West Nile. 