I’d just like to say this sucks. I’d love to regularly donate blood, but I’ve been banned (and after my only experience, I can’t say I’m eager to repeat). Am I sick? No. But my body is apparently very selfish about its blood.
The only time I donated was for my own father, who had 16+ hours of back surgery a couple of years ago. I was fine until about the last 5 minutes–everything went white, nurses were scrambling, and I remember getting very pissed off that they wouldn’t let me sleep. “Open your eyes!” got very annoying. I threw up, twice I think, then had to be carried to the bathroom for the ensuing diarrhea. I recall the nurse saying strongly, “I don’t recommend you donate blood again,” about 3-4 times. Considering my level of consciousness, repetition was a good idea.
So I haven’t, and I can’t. I don’t get it. I’m thin, but not waifish by any means. I’d eaten that morning, wasn’t menstruating…just not something I’m meant to do, I guess. Dammit.
I used to think the world was against me. Now I know better. Some of the smaller countries are neutral.
OK, I’m not going to shed much more light on this subject, but I just wanted to tell you all more than you ever needed or wanted to know about my weird relationship with blood.
I am positively phobic about it - not the sight of it, the IDEA of it. Living, liquid tissue. Ugh! Makes me oogy just thinking about it! Can’t explain why. And although it supposedly isn’t all that bad of a way to go, the idea of bleeding to death terrifies me.
All that said, I donate blood every chance I get, and have given well over a gallon.
I’ve given blood six times a year for the last 11 years. I’m CMV neg. (needed for newborns with few imunities), so the ARC calls me up to remind me every 60 days that if I don’t get down there, some baby will die. I dread that call. I hate the emotional blackmail they use to get me into the center. I hate the 15 minute, highly personal interview I’m subjected to every time I go in. I hate the morgue gurney I have to lay on while they draw my blood. (The La-Z boys in the bloodmobiles are much more comfortable). I hate the fact that almost every time I go there’s another donor who has passed out. I hate their crappy cookies and juice.
I think more people would give blood if the Red Cross made an effort to make it a more comfortable experience. There’s no reason why I should have to verbally state to a complete stranger that I don’t trade sex for drugs every time I give blood. There’s no reason they couldn’t make the blood drawing less clinical. These aren’t the kind of things overpaid bureaucrats like Elizabeth Dole think about.
I hate the whole experience, but what choice do you have when they tell you you’re saving lives?
I actually enjoy giving blood! Although I’m female, I have a tendency to overproduce red blood cells (polycythemia?). I always feel terrific after donating - passing out? feeling weak? needing cookies and juice? Not me!! I go shopping!! I always feel frisky and energized afterwards. Too bad I’m not some rare blood type - I could probably donate more often than the average person.
And the personal questions? We always laugh through them. I know they have to ask and why they have to ask, so it doesn’t bother me.
Plus there’s the free health screening - the blood bank will definitely let you know if they find out you have AIDS or hepatitis or something, and the local organization also checks your cholesterol level and mails you a card with the results. (Although I think I preferred the free T-shirts they used to give out - my last one had a goofy looking chicken on the front, and said “Don’t be chicken - give blood!”)
I hate to be the downer here, but wasn’t there recently a case in San Francisco where a medical center had a technician who was taking blood samples and reusing the needles? I know there was a flap of said technician reusing needles, and I think it was blood smaples, but it might have been just injections.
It must be said that the lady in question was not properly trained obviously, and the medical center is currently being rather sued.
I also will say, that I think this is more the fluke/exception, and that I would give blood as often as I could, save the Hep incident from my childhood.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
[[Exactly zero. There has never been a recorded instance of receiving the HIV virus from giving blood. And logically, there shouldn’t be. One gets HIV and AIDS from receiving tainted blood, most often from sex or from needle-sharing.]] Manhattan
In the U.S. maybe. But in Mexico, so many people have been infected by HIV from donating blood that there was an established risk category, “donadores de sangre.” There they DID recycle needles.
Jill
p.s. – I am ill for the rest of the day after donating whole blood, but found that I can donate plasma without a problem. It’s probably because they put back fluids to replace what was taken out. Maybe because of my low blood pressure?
jill
Jill’s right of course, and I thank her for correcting my Yankee Imperialism on behalf of foreign readers of this board. So check with your local authorities.
I haven’t heard of the San Francisco case referred to by Narile, but I’ll WAG that it was from injections. It is also worth pointing out that at least in most cases, both sample-taking and injections are different from donations in an important respect… All the blood I’ve ever donated has been through the Red Cross, and IIRC they have a rig physically attached to each bag, making it more difficult to reuse a needle than not. I’m not familiar with the specifics of other programs, but I have to imagine that they work similarly.
I agree with Moriah that there is a definite health plus, at least for men, in donating blood. There is some disease, hemo- ferro- something or the other (I gave my book on it away) in which the iron content of the blood is too high and actually causes tissue damage especially to the heart. While blood is naturally recycled in the body, there is an imperfect mechanism for excreting iron, (Dr. Billy Rubin, hematologist (actually this is a joke name)). Women, for obvious reasons, don’t have this problem as much as men with a more or less sealed circulatory system. As a pure speculation, this disease might be one of the reasons heart disease hits men more than women. Men, give blood and live as long as women!
The condition you’re thinking of, Mipsman, is hemachromotosis.
It is the most common genetic disorder in Caucasians, with a heterozygous carrier rate of ~ 10%; and a homozygous affected rate of about 1%.
As you alluded, women generally fare better with this condition than do men, because of losing iron regularly through mensruation & childbirth.
Treatment is to simply remove blood as often as needed to keep iron stores from being deposited in inappropriate places. Unfortunately, such blood is NOT being used for transfusion due to ethical concerns, but with the growing number of other exclusions, & the growing imbalance between demand & supply, this is eing reconsidered.
Other important things to do if you have this condition are to notify other family members, and to minimize your alcohol consumption, which greatly accelerates the damage done to your liver.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
I gave blood for the first time last year. I had had good intentions before, but always seemed to be just getting or just recovering from being sick when the bloodmobile showed up (and I didn’t even know where a blood center was, not that I would have motivated myself to go there if I did). So several things combined last year and it all worked out and I donated. No problems, except that I went a little pale and the nurses all started yelling at me to keep my eyes open.
I’m sure it was psychological rather than physical; I’ve known for some time that I can handle the sight of blood, whether mine or someone else’s, as long as I’m DOING something about it, but once the crisis is past or someone else is taking care of it I get queasy. I was laying there wondering exactly what was going to happen when they pulled the needle out, and started feeling funny, and they take that kind of thing REALLY seriously when you’re donating.
Anyhow, the most recent time I donated, they said my blood pressure was too high. They asked if I was nervous, which I was for the aforementioned reasons, and I said yes so they waited to give me time to calm down and took it again and it was within their allowed range.
I asked if there was something “wrong” with my blood because of the high pressure, and apparently it was concern for my health that would have stopped them from taking it; the blood itself was fine. So, why would giving blood if you’ve got high blood pressure be a bad thing?
Can anybody tell me if there is a limit on donating blood after taking Chloroquine (sp?) for Malaria? I had read that you can’t donate for 3 years after the last dose.
Adam, the prohibition against donating after taking Chloroquine has nothing to do with the Chloroquine itself, but of is for the same reason you took the chloroquine in the first place - that you were in an area that put you at risk for becoming infected with malaria. (As you probably knew)
People can have unrecognized malarial infections for years & the protozoan lives in red blood cells; hence the prohibition. I don’t know the details of the duration of the prohibition, but off the top of my head 3 years would be about right, and would be dated from when you stopped taking the chloroquine, since the chloroquine could mask an infection (prevent you from showing any signs of infection, while not killing all of the protozoa.)
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
I’ll answer this from a layman’s point of view. If it’s wrong I’m sure it’ll get more response correcting me than just asking.
High blood pressure is not typically an overactive heart pumping an excessive amount of blood through your system to the point it’s ready to pop out of all your pours.
It’s actually more likely a laboring heart trying to pump blood through a plaque lined (constricted)artery or an artery that has lost it’s elastisity (hardened artery) and therefore it’s ability to expand with the surge in pressure and contract to help the blood along.
The heart is already trading increased pressure for lack of volume to get the necessary quantity of blood to where it needs to go. To decrease it’s available volume of blood seems counter productive.
If in fact your high blood pressure is due to nerves, then you should calm back down and all is well again, otherwise, I can’ see them taking the chance.
The reason is that in some people with high blood pressure, the higher pressure is necessary to force sufficient quantities of blood through arteries narrowed by cholesterol plaques & atherosclerosis. The abnormalities that lead to the elevated BP & desired effects of meds taken to treat high BP also mean that normal mechanisms for maintaining a desireable BP are working suboptimally.
Fast forward to your incident after donating previously - a sudden drop in BP. People whose BP is not well regulated before donating are more likely to experience such a drop, and likely to tolerate it less well than people with good BP control.
Hope this answers your question!
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.