October 30, 2009 at 7:51 am
Great points, GSquared. It's good to let people know that selling blood doesn't necessarily help others with their lives.
October 30, 2009 at 7:55 am
I gave blood while in the military and then with my present employer for at least 10 years until the Red Cross changed their rules and now they don't want mine because I lived in Europe during mad cow disease time. I think it's a bad decision by the Red Cross as I don't have mad cow disease and they lost a large number of ex military who were frequent blood donors.
Hopy you recover from your illness.
October 30, 2009 at 9:23 am
I've been a donor for the past 4 years. What got me started was donating plasma for my son. He needed heart surgery when he was 10 months old. I'll never, in my whole life, forget the hope I felt when a total stranger came into the donation center and said she was donating for a child she'd never met. As it turns out, she was a friend of my sisters and that was how she heard about his need.
I've donated ever since. Usually plasma, sometimes double reds... whatever they ask for. I'm O negative, so they ask me a lot! 🙂
Thanks for the post... people need to know how important this is.
October 30, 2009 at 9:27 am
I, too, lived in the UK during the mad cow hoopla, and as a consequence the U.S. forbids me from donating... I have heard they are going to start easing this restriction, though. Good luck.
October 30, 2009 at 9:52 am
I'll second the call for healthy people to donate. I never even thought about donating blood for over 20 years, then decided I wanted to do something to help after 9/11. I was surprised at how easy and painless it is and I've donated regularly ever since.
We have regularly scheduled donation days with a mobile blood center unit at work which makes it even more convenient. Takes about 30 minutes and I get cookies and juice!
Greg
October 30, 2009 at 10:49 am
I started donating blood back in the 80's. One day in 1990 I got a letter from the local Blood Bank saying my last donation had something "out of specification" with it and I could no longer donate. Without providing any details, they suggested a doctor follow up. I didn't do that right away but months later a tiny little bit of blood should up in my urine. I remembered the letter. It took several months but I finally discovered that I had bladder cancer. If not for donating, I would have not been looking for the reason or even known I was sick. I have been cancer free since then and have even returned to donating blood. I try and do the ALYX donation which takes double the amount of red cell or platelets and puts the rest back in. It's still just a pint donation same as a whole blood donation. May not be much help in cases like yours, but it helps a whole lot of others. I would urge anyone to try and donate. Not everybody can and their is no substitute. It's part of giving back to your community and I don't need any politician to tell me to do that!
October 30, 2009 at 11:29 am
Just passed 6 gallons two weeks ago.
Anyone here been disqualified by a false positive? Mine was high liver enzyme, which 'CAN' indicate hepatitis. I don't and have never had, and have been further tested, but with most of the blood centers, they black list you, and refuse to retest. Turns out that test can also be triggered by stress, alcohol, and exhaustion. That's what I get for donating during dead week in college. The cost of retesting out ways the number of people cleared apparently. The only way to get un-blacklisted is for the Gvntmt to decide that test is no longer valid, and has approved a new test for that condition that generated the false positive, Then all people who tested positive for that invalid test can re-try.
There is another option: Go to a different blood center.
Here in the US there is no national registry of blood donations or black lists. It's by state, and only by blood organization. So, if you get (verifiably false) black listed by the Red Cross, cross a state line, or find someone other than the Red Cross and you can donate.
This is where conference blood drives can work really great, many people cross state lines to travel to conferences. Find a donation center near by, and get in there.
October 30, 2009 at 11:41 am
Gammaglobulin does necessarily require blood donations. The vast majority comes from plasma donations. Plasma is the clear stuff the the blood cells swim around in. A unit of plasma helps a lot of people with different illnesses; hemophilia, compromised immune systems, alpha1 to name a few. The advantage is a plasma donor can donate every 4 days while a blood donor can only donate ever 56 days. Plasma donors receive a stipend for their time (and plasma), usually about $35-50 per donation. It takes about 45 minutes to donate plasma.
I've been on IViG for over 27 years. It really isn't as terrible as some people make it out to be.
October 30, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Thank you all for the replies and encouragement, it's nice to know so many people in our community give blood. I haven't been sick (cross fingers) since my last bout of pneumonia in June, I attribute it to luck, using LOTS of hand sanitizer, and getting treated. It's sometimes difficult answering people who ask how I'm doing, I haven't been sick but that doesn't mean that I'm well. Time will tell if my immune system starts up again or not, I read two case studies of a 10 year old and a teen who have my condition whose immune systems restarted, but I'm far from a teen.
Lev, it's good to hear from another PI person! We're considering trying IVIG in a few months when my first review comes up. I'm going to twice a week SCIG infusions as my doctor kicked up my dose from 60ml to 70ml, complicating my infusion and taking it up to over 4 hours a week.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
October 30, 2009 at 1:50 pm
If you're spending 4 hours a week on subq, you might consider IViG. I infuse 60 grams, 600ML of Gamunex in about 2-1/2 hours. I have a nurse come to my home every four weeks. I've been on home infusion since 1982. It is really the easiest way for me.
October 30, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I'm definitely considering IVIG. Based on incomplete information, we thought SubQ would work well. We didn't know what the time requirement would be like, much less the pain being somewhat more substantial than expected. I have a pretty high level for pain tolerance, but this definitely frequently exceeds it.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
November 1, 2009 at 11:51 pm
I used to give blood regularly, but after living in Equatorial Africa for 3 years in the early 90's, I am ineligible. I have never had a good explanation as to why living in a region would make me ineligible.
November 2, 2009 at 1:13 am
Ross McMicken (11/1/2009)
I used to give blood regularly, but after living in Equatorial Africa for 3 years in the early 90's, I am ineligible. I have never had a good explanation as to why living in a region would make me ineligible.
Most likely it's because of the number of AIDS cases in Africa, not unlike people being disqualified for being in England during the Mad Cow era. I have no idea how well inspected the African blood supply is, but my sister and grandmother had to be tested for AIDS because of receiving blood when the American supply was suspect, and the science fiction author Isaac Asimov died of AIDS due to contaminated blood received during heart surgery.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
November 2, 2009 at 6:35 am
Wayne West (11/2/2009)
Ross McMicken (11/1/2009)
I used to give blood regularly, but after living in Equatorial Africa for 3 years in the early 90's, I am ineligible. I have never had a good explanation as to why living in a region would make me ineligible.Most likely it's because of the number of AIDS cases in Africa, not unlike people being disqualified for being in England during the Mad Cow era. I have no idea how well inspected the African blood supply is, but my sister and grandmother had to be tested for AIDS because of receiving blood when the American supply was suspect, and the science fiction author Isaac Asimov died of AIDS due to contaminated blood received during heart surgery.
Because my husband lived in Botswana in the early 70's (Peace Corp) we both get more closely screened. They told me that the issue for that part of Africa, at that time, is malaria. We are still allowed to give blood.
Terri
To speak algebraically, Mr. M. is execrable, but Mr. C. is
(x+1)-ecrable.
Edgar Allan Poe
[Discussing fellow writers Cornelius Mathews and William Ellery Channing.]
November 3, 2009 at 11:17 am
jcrawf02 (10/30/2009)
Andrew Watson-478275 (10/30/2009)
At the risk of sounding like a moaning Jock, that one's only for England and Wales. The Scottish one's http://www.scotblood.co.uk/...bloody English...;-)
Actually there's also a separate Welsh Blood Service!
Declaring an interest - I work for NHS Blood and Transplant, the parent of the [English] National Blood Service - can I mention that we have just launched a fresh campaign to encourage people to join the NHS Organ Donor Register.
A local predecessor of our current national database really was called DRACULA - a carefully-formed acronym (something about Donor Recall And Call-Up... whatever, before my time)!
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