blood doning

[Tangled Metal]

Some donation technicians are more brutal than others. Occasionally you'll get one who'll stick the needle in miss. Then move it around under the skin until he gets it into a vein. If they can't get it in they can't take it it to try elsewhere. They would have to get a new kit but the kit they've just used has your stickers on and they're not allowed to print new ones or take them off the old kit neither. Basically they get it into the vein without withdrawal or the donation is over.

I've never had a miss only my first donation, on my birthday, resulted in a bruise a cm proud of my arm. That then spread into a black, blue, purple and red bruise covering the whole of my forearm from just above my inside of the elbow down to nut wrist and across all the way. Worst case my doctor had seen. She asked which butcher did it.

One time a young lass asked at the donation session if I was ok for her to do the injection. She was a trainee about 30 goes shy of being signed off. I kept seeing people turn her down and wait for the experienced guy. It was slowing things down. I politely asked how long she's been doing it with no intention of turning her down. I was told she was practically fully qualified. All those people who said no had twice the wait for nothing. Best thing though was that she was a natural. Hit the vein cleanly. Much better than the guy doing it. I know he's a stick it in and wiggle it guy. I'd rather have a trainee!

It's fun being a regular. They kind of remember you, certainly if you're a friendly 2m tall guy who's there every panel possible.

[Tangled Metal]

Unfortunately I started late 20s and stopped a few years later because the BDS actively discouraged donations at that panel with their stupid booking system that never worked. I only got to low 30s. A couple of gifts in iirc.

My dad got to the real silver pin badge and a whiskey glass. Triple figures but he then got banned due to medical reasons.

I still carry my donor card because it reassures me having that ID and blood type with me. Obviously they can't use it without testing my type in an emergency but it's still reassuring somehow.

[Jdsk]

How much is taken each time? What happens to the space thus created, does it fill with water or air, do the blood vessels contract? How long does the body need to make new blood to replace the blood taken?

470 ml for a typical whole blood donation.

No, of course it doesn't fill with air. The intravascular volume decreases by the amount removed. The circulatory system compensates a bit, including some contraction of blood vessels. There is some movement of fluid from the extravascular space to the intravascular space. And the water conserving pathways are switched on, including the ADH system and the renin-angiotensin system. The intravascular volume is back to normal within about 48h.

It takes several weeks, usually about 4 to 8, for the red blood cells and haemoglobin to return to normal.

https://www.blood.co.uk/the-donation-process/after-your-donation/how-your-body-replaces-blood/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_donation_in_England

Jonathan

[Mistik-ka]

In Canada I was working my way up towards the 100 donation mark —like tc I was in the plasmapheresis program, so the donations added up steadily— when I was declared ineligible to make further donations. There was a concern about an association between BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and the Canadian Red Cross who ran our system declared they would no longer accept blood from anyone who had spent more than a certain number of weeks in the U.K. during the years of BSE outbreaks. My three months working with Northern Renaissance Instruments in Manchester put me over the limit.

I received a fancy certificate after my seventy-fifth donation. It declares me to be "a great humanitarian".

It's your fault I never made triple digits!

[iandriver]

I regularly donate. I do notice a slight decrease in my average speed on the GPS logs over my 15 mile commute to work. I can't rally feel it, but swear it's fractionally slower for a week or so. I think it's the opposite of EPO.

Never had anything I really notice myself.

Might have just coincided with a bit of an off patch. Sometimes my legs do just feel heavy, without really knowing why.

[thirdcrank]

The post by Mistik-ka reminds me that the long-overdue Infected Blood Inquiry continues the official attempts to evade liability for what was IMO one of the greatest scandals in our post-war history.

https://www.infectedbloodinquiry.org.uk/

For anybody who missed it, the UK, with blood donated in the the spirit of altruism and consequently generally ok, bought blood products from the US where typically blood is not donated but sold by people who are desperate for the $$$ and tend to have all sorts of infectious diseases. The result was that people with haemophilia (their blood does not clot normally) were infected by being injected with filth and to aggravate that the authorities have sought to deny / obfuscate / generally wriggle out of any admission of responsibility.

(No interest, other than as a former blood donor.)

[foxyrider]

i'd love to say i donate but 1) i just don't do needles (i passed out at school once watching a vid about drug abuse!) and 2) the mid 80's transfusion thing, i had a pint or so when they rebuilt my knee. i have got a bit better over the years, they can, when they can find a vein, take samples without me passing out - a more common issue than you might be led to believe. It was a bit of a problem when i had to inject my rat poison when i had the DVT, was i glad to change to oral drugs!

So from me, thank you to everyone who does/can donate, you really are appreciated by the end users

[Jdsk]

It was a bit of a problem when i had to inject my rat poison when i had the DVT, was i glad to change to oral drugs!

The rat poison family is the coumarins, such as Warfarin, and they're taken orally... that's why they work as rat poison.

The injected anticoagulants which are used initially are often heparin and similar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heparin

Jonathan

[Tangled Metal]

Didn't our national blood service actually buy an American blood service outright in order to provide The blood products they needed for UK patients? I wonder if that was only considered necessary because UK citizens did not donate enough? Does anyone know whether we are a nation with a low rate if blood donations compared to other countries?

I can't take any moral high ground on this as I don't donate anymore and that's not what I'm about. It's just that perhaps the us blood scandal only came about for domestic supply reasons. If a country can supply its donated blood needs there would be no need to import from outside the country where their control might not be as good as here.

[Tiberius]

I'm 63 and have just hit 90 donations.

I've never had a single problem re recovery - glass of orange and a bag of crisps and I'm off.

My only real moan (as others have said) is the booking system and the on-day waiting times. It used to be terrible, then it got a lot better but now it's back to square one. I guess that they would blame covid but I think it's more than that. The whole operation seems chaotic as if it were being run by volunteers.

Anyway, fingers crossed that I keep well enough to hit 100. Sounds like a plan eh??

[Tangled Metal]

Is that whole blood donation at 90?

[Tiberius]

Is that whole blood donation at 90?

If that question was for me then yes, I have donated 90 pints of blood.

[ANTONISH]

You can't donate above 70 so for most of you guys it's not an issue anymore!

Just realised it could be more of an issue if you're having blood tests a lot. Although they take less blood in one hit with that N and you should have more than enough time to replenish between vampire sessions.

You can if you are a regular donor.
I recent years donating blood had a definite effect on my cycling so that my legs felt dead for a few days.
As I got older my blood levels declined so that I was often borderline and sometimes below donating level. After two consecutive fails when I was 76 I decided to give up.

[thirdcrank]

I'm 63 and have just hit 90 donations.

I've never had a single problem re recovery - glass of orange and a bag of crisps and I'm off.

My only real moan (as others have said) is the booking system and the on-day waiting times. It used to be terrible, then it got a lot better but now it's back to square one. I guess that they would blame covid but I think it's more than that. The whole operation seems chaotic as if it were being run by volunteers.

Anyway, fingers crossed that I keep well enough to hit 100. Sounds like a plan eh??
(My emphasis)

To make so many standard donations in spite of the poor organization seems remarkable. I once worked out that the sheer ineptitude of the NBTS meant I had missed more theoretical opportunities to donate than I had made donations.

[Tangled Metal]

Is that whole blood donation at 90?

If that question was for me then yes, I have donated 90 pints of blood.

Yes, sorry should have mentioned or quoted you.

I asked because it's such a high number, well done and thank you. It's just that the blood component donation can be made much more frequently allowing for higher number of donations possible much quicker.

Not that 90 donations of any kind isn't remarkable it's just that 90 whole blood donations means 45 years of twice yearly donations without fail. I think that's incredible dedication. Especially with increasingly difficult systems in place around booking a donation over the years I donated (about 8 years ago my last).

I got to about 30ish whole blood donations, not suitable for component donations. I tried to go to every possible session but missed a few and did the next panel a month or so later instead. I stopped because locally blood donation was popular and even with donation bookings I often never got to give blood. There simply wasn't enough capacity for the demand from locals to give blood. They could easily have doubled the number of visits or number of beds at each session.

To get in you needed to book the next session before each donation session, if not two sessions off. Then you had to get to the session as close to the start of the evening session to book in no matter what time your appointment was. Kind of appointment to weed a few people out then first come first served no matter what your appointment was for. A real mess and I am not the only person to give up. It was the biggest thing people talked about at the recovery refreshments seating area.