Today I get off work at 2:00 pm. I do not have anything to eat from when I arrive to when I leave (and not much beforehand). Should I give blood today or wait for another day, or will not eating help? Could it make me faint and unable to drive home?
Not a doctor, but a former blood donor attendant.
It all depends on things like how big you are, how frequently you donate and so on, but as a general rule, we would advise donors who hadn’t eaten to go away and do so, then come back to donate.
So I would say that if there’s no way to eat before you go, you should probably wait until tomorrow if possible. Being hungry could, potentially, make you feel ill.
The best thing to do would be to call your blood bank and ask for advice, of course - I’m just a random Joe on the internet.
Ah. Maybe I will check and see when they’ll have their mobile unit closer to home.
You know, they’ll give you crackers and a soda, if you ask…they usually give it afterwards, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t give it before-hand, if it helped you donate.
Is there more to your question than food, Bandit?
The process is easy and virtually painless. There is always a shortage of blood and there’s nothing that can replace blood when it’s needed. Very few people are unable to give blood for physical reasons, (to small or have bad reactions), and too many who are barred from giving blood for other reasons. (I can’t give blood any more due to an illness. Used to give blood often as I have a rare type.)
If it was a member of your family that needed an immediate operation, would you hesitate?
Would you want any of us to hesitate?
Go do it. You’ll feel good about yourself once you do.
And while I’m on the subject, I hope you will forgive me for suggesting that all of you reading this post get up from your keyboard and give blood soon and regularly. Maybe we dopers should meet at the blood bank in stead of a bar every once and a while.
Blood is one thing every human has in common with every other, yes? Any one of us could need blood at any time. Wouldn’t it be an unspeakable tragedy if the blood we needed to save our life, or the life of someone we cherish, was still in someone’s arm.
And there’s free juice and cookies afterwards…what’s better than that?
It’s important to at least drink well before donating, in my experience. Not caffeine or alcohol, but be well hydrated. The worst experiences I’ve had trying to donate were when I was only slightly dehydrated and they had lots of trouble getting my blood to flow. Once, they never were able to puncture a vein and the other time, my blood came out so slowly they had to stop me and throw it away. Now I always make sure to drink a lot of water before hand and it goes smoothly.
Please do so soon for those of us willing but not able.
(I was stationed in Europe for a while in the Navy, and now I get turned down because of mad-cow screening.)
I stand by my comments earlier - this is especially true if it’s smiling bandit’s first donation. I would hate for someone to go along to donate blood, have one of the rare nasty experiences as a result of not eating, and then decide they were never going back.
That said, Myself also makes good points. The process is quick and not painful, not too many people have problems, and blood donations are always needed.
Good advice.
Funnily enough, if we ever had to stop a donation for any reason, our instructions were not to inform the donor that we’d have to discard the blood. Incidentally, that happens because the packs we use to collect the blood contain a measured amount of an anticoagulant. The amount is based on a full (450ml in Scotland) donation - if the amount is significantly less than that, there will be too much anticoagulant for the blood to be useable.