I have now donated a full gallon of blood products!
Previous posts:
- Comment: Becoming eligible to donate due to change in FDA guidelines that impact gay men
- Topic: I donated blood for the first time!
- Topic: I donated platelets for the first time!
Not sure if anyone here has been following my little personal saga on this front, but I have now officially donated a full gallon of blood products: two whole blood donations (1 pint each) and two platelet donations (3 pints each). All together that's eight pints, or one gallon! Not too bad for someone who just started this in January!
Having done it a couple of times now, I can confidently say that the worst part of the whole process for me is the finger prick at the beginning to check your hemoglobin levels. Because there are a lot of nerve endings on your fingertips, it hurts more and lingers longer than the needles in the arms. Those sting a little bit going in, but the pain isn't too bad and goes away very quickly.
I've been doing the platelet donations on my own, but my husband and I have been doing the blood donations together, which feels really cool to do as a gay couple since we were barred from doing it for so long. After our most recent donations we got free matching T-shirts, so now we can not only donate together but also look super cute while doing it too. 😁
This is probably the final update about this I'll post here. I don't want to come across as self-aggrandizing or anything, and I'm not posting this for any sort of kudos. I'm simply excited to share something that I've waited literal decades to do!
Also, while I was in the chair and watching my pint bag fill up, I did have a thought of "I should ask Tildes about this." In the US, they, of course, measure my donations in pints and gallons. In other countries however, is a pint still the standard measurement used for a "unit" of blood, or do they use a different easy metric unit (e.g. half a liter)?
Wow. I actually blacked out the last time I had blood taken, I think. Well done. How are you feeling? Do they let you sit awhile and have a cup of tea after to chill, so you don't fall over on the way out?
I can barely handle just a blood draw for a test. Then again, I do have somewhat stubborn anemia, so don't do the best with reduced blood quantities. (Mind, the test blood draw is anxiety due to that rather than actual reduction of blood quantity from having a couple of tubes drawn)
I had bad luck the first two times donating blood. The first time I got sick right after so they had to throw my blood away, the second the girl put the needle in wrong so they weren’t drawing out blood and it hurt a lot.
I’m O- so I used to get called a lot to donate until I started taking Dutasteride.
They've got a canteen area with snacks and juice. They have you stay for 15 minutes after the donation just to make sure you're feeling okay.
Honestly, I don't feel that different after doing it. For whole blood donations, it's really only a "minus one" to my day (as in, if I was feeling 7/10 when I went in, it becomes 6/10 afterwards). For platelets, I don't really feel different at all afterwards.
1 gallon is 3.7854L, or one milk jug in Canada.
Great job!! What a wonderful gift! And I LOVE that you guys have cute matching shirts while donating. I've never done it before but I guess you're in a semi public area reclining on adjacent beds looking like a couple of bosses?
I've never donated.....not blood anyway (I donated eggs). I'm squeamish and feel dizzy just thinking about it though, and never got past the dizziness enough to sign up ...... Which makes no logical sense since I don't feel like this about any other medical procedures involving blood loss.
The couple times I've had to had an IV put in my arm I super super super hated it. Thanks for mentioning that the finger prick is the worst part ....
Is the actual donation needle kind of like drawing blood needle, just more quantity and longer?
Thanks for the kind words! And don't feel bad if donating blood is not for you. There are myriad reasons why people can't or won't donate. It's a kindness not an obligation!
Also, donating eggs is genuinely incredible (and, from what I understand, WAY more involved than donating blood). Good on you for doing that!
Yup! It's just a big room with a lot of chairs -- some for platelet donations and some for blood donations. We chill in the chairs while hooked up to our machines and repeatedly squeezing stress balls (not because we're stressed but because it helps with the blood flow). After everything's set up and going it takes less than 10 minutes or so for whole blood (platelets is closer to two hours).
I think they might be the same needle, though I'm not actually sure.
The process is a little bit different than a blood draw. For the donation, they put a tube in your arm that has a fork in it. One fork goes to the blood bag, and the other goes to a spot where the nurse can draw blood separately. They use that to fill several vials that get sent off for testing to make sure your blood can be used.
Congrats!
The way the title is phrased, my first reaction was to imagine you bursting into a red cross center triumphantly carrying an open bucket full of an entire gallon of blood.
I'm glad you're doing it the right way. Congratulations!
Now I have a new milestone to shoot for! Gallon #2, here I come! 😂
If anyone here experiences pain from having your blood drawn and is therefore reluctant to donate, maybe time try your other arm and see if that feels better?
My partner always hated having blood drawn because it hurt him terribly (whereas I can barely even feel it). He would get it done only in his non-dominant arm because it would ache for a long time after. But then a particularly observant phlebotomist had a look at his arm and said, "Did you know that you have a nerve growing right in the way of your vein? Let me do your other arm instead." And it now he no longer dreads having his blood drawn.
Let’s fucking go! Surprisingly I’ve never been able to peer pressure anyone into donating. I’d love to have a platelet buddy some day.