Went to give blood the other day and got turned away.
I’d been clipping the cat’s claws the night before and had sustained a few nicks and scratches on my arm.
When I put out my arm to get my blood pressure taken, the doctor took one look at the scratches, asked me what they were from, and then told me to come back when they were fully healed.
I felt pretty dumb.
It seems rather obvious now, but although the questionnaire I signed at the reception asked about vaccinations, piercings and tattoos, it didn’t mention anything about pet scratches, and it just didn’t occur to me.
I ended up wasting my time and theirs.
(And I didn’t get a cookie this time.)
There are so many things that can cause a donor to be deferred that they can only cover the big ones in the reading material. When I am assessing someone’s arms, aside from looking for track marks, I am making sure there is at least a 3“ square of intact skin (no rashes, cuts, or scratches) around the venipuncture site on at least one arm. I might also defer for scratches outside that area if they looked infected, which wouldn’t surprise me with cat scratches. You should have gotten a cookie for trying anyway. Don’t worry about wasting any body’s time.
That’s all right. I’ve shown up and gotten dinged twice. (or maybe :smack: for not realizing things ahead of time)
Once was for having travelled to barely inside a region that pretty rarely has malaria at the extreme other end of it (and never at the mountainous end I was in), so there was pretty much zero actual risk. But the whole region was a malaria zone on the map, so we decided better play by the rules and I’ll come back in six months. And once because it wasn’t until I was filling out the forms that I realized that I did in fact have an organ transplant in the last year (a couple inches of cadaver ligament is still a tissue transplant, by the rules, but easy enough to not think about ahead of time). Again, no real risk but we played by the rules and I left without cookies and juice and with all my blood.
Don’t worry, you’ll get to bleed next time, I’m sure.
My friend’s 16-year-old daughter was very excited about the prospect of donating blood, and when she came in, she was rejected because her systolic blood pressure was 122, and 120 was the cutoff.
Turns out her daughter had gotten her braces off earlier in the day; BTDT and it’s a very stressful experience.
I used to work at a plasma centre and defer people from donating for so many things. Eczema in the inner arms where the phlebotomy site is. Heart attacks, strokes, recovered from any kind of cancer except certain small skin cancers, all are deferrals that are very disappointing to the donor. This type of donor really wants to give back to the system that helped them. But the blood services company must take donor safety as well as recipient safety into consideration, so sometimes it is for your own good.
One very excited teenage girl was going for her first donation, but she had her track and field day a few days earlier and had lost some body weight. She was 4 lbs under our lower allowable limit, so I had to send her home for that reason. She came back next week in jeans, heavier shoes and had eaten more, so she qualified. (or had ankle weights on… I don’t know)
So sorry for your deferral, but its awesome you want to donate.
I was rejected – after donating a gallon of blood over the years – because the test for Hepatitis C was “inconclusive.” Not that I had it, but that the test they use (where false positives are common) did not give either a negative or positive. Now I can’t give blood any more.
It’s silly: I don’t have Hep C and never did any activity where I had a chance of getting it.
I have gotten rejected several times because my iron count was too low. Remember when they would put a drop of your blood in that blue stuff to see if it sank? Now they usually spin it in a centrifuge.
I always felt lousy after getting rejected. “They didn’t even want my blood!” but I guess it’s for the best. One time, the day after I came down with the worse case of the flu I’ve ever had. Really, the “crawl up on the couch and pray for death” kind, so I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t donate then…
Thanks Quercus. When you put it like that it sounds like a pretty good deal.
I’d love to hear that used as a line in a gangster movie, as an offer that can’t be refused.
And that could be used as the politest threat ever.
Yeah, that does strike me as rather odd.
I’ve got an English colleague here in Japan who’s in the same predicament.
(I keep telling him to stop bugging his eyes out and mooing when they take his blood pressure, but he just can’t help himself.)
Heck, they’ll reject you even if you’ve only visited the UK.
I believe you are accurately narrating what you were told, but the American Red Cross limits on blood pressure are a systolic lower than 180 and a diastolic lower than 100. On a better device I’d give you a link, but you could look it up. I have given blood over a hundred times and my systolic has always been over 120.
I’m not getting what it is about scratches that keep you from donating blood. Even cat scratches, if it’s bartonella they’re worried about, being healed wouldn’t make any difference. Was it the location? Too close to the puncture site?
:DArms must be visibly clear of open/ unhealed lesions to donate. If your left arm is in a cast I cannot let you donate with your right. The only person l cleared to donate without seeing both anticubital fossa was a gentleman who had his arm mangled in an industrial accident and as a result was an above the elbow amputee.
British people (and many resident non-citizens) donate blood. The US and some other countries exclude British donors because they can do so without leaving themselves short.
(or maybe :smack: for not realizing things ahead of time)
