I will donate blood one day, but I’m not right now because I’m 16. I am an organ donor, however.
I let diesase infested people poke dirty, used needles into my body to insert ink and bits of metal.
Well, that, or I’ve been to a clean, sanitary tattoo place recently that used a clean, autoclaved needle on me and threw it out right after they were done, and there is almost no chance that I could have caught anything from there.
Either way, I’ve been tattooed in the past year, before that it was pierced, and now I’m pregnant, so it looks like I get to keep my blood to myself for a while now. Before that, I used to go all the time. I think the first time was in high school, when they brought around the “blood bank on wheels” and then I’d just go to the place down the street.
I used to give regularly. One day I came up anemic. I have been anemic ever since.
I didn’t know diabetics couldn’t donate.
I come up too low on iron every time (not anemic really, but they want you to be extra iron-y, apparently). And then I’ve spent a lot of the past few years either pregnant or nursing or something else.
I’m not afraid of needles–complicated pregnancies will cure you of that–but I always have to have a butterfly, and veins aren’t easy to find.
I think they’ve changed some of the disease rules; my mom had hepatits as a child, and recently was declared eligible to donate.
Anticoagulants. My blood would not play nicely with the other blood…Timmy
I avoid any health care treatment for fear of needles. Hence, no blood donation either.
Hep A when I was 12. Which is kind of sad, since I’ve been told if I was 11 they would take me, the cutoff date appearantly is 12.
I’ve got a morbid fear of needles, and what has been referred to (three times, in my presence, by Red Cross personnel) as “junkie veins”. One of them actually, while I was lying on the table, took the opportunity to remind me that I wasn’t allowed to donate if I was an IV-user. I still used to donate pretty regularly, though.
However, about five years ago I started playing sport on a semi-regular basis. Squash with friends, volleyball and netball with a lunchtime comp, rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer. I’m one of those big fat guys you sometimes see in these competitions who’s completely skill-free, but hypercompetitive. I used to weigh 140kg (now down to 110, and still 15-20 more to take off), but I tend to throw myself around a fair but.
I found out fairly quickly that if I gave blood, I wasn’t up to playing sport for two weeks. So I stopped. Apparently my sport is more important to me than other people’s lives. Go figure.
You can actually go through the whole process and then ask them to throw the blood away, if you don’t want anyone to be suspicious of your reasons for not donating. The last bit on the Red Cross application gives you two stickers (with bar codes, so it’s not readily identifiable with the naked eye), one for donating and one for throwing out, and you choose one and put it on the form. I was so befuddled by that that I asked the nurse why this would even be an option, and she explained it.
Sorry for posting twice in a row; I didn’t notice this earlier.
My mom is a diabetic and donates blood. She’s got some odd blood type (A- or something) and they love her. She’s a Type 1 (juvenile) diabetic, I’m not sure if that makes a difference.
This interesting. I had no idea there were so many grounds for disqualification. I imagine I’d be rejected on at least one of them.