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If you don't already, y'all should donate blood.

P

PersonAndStuff

Member
I donate platelets at the Red Cross every couple months and it's honestly one of the easiest ways to do a good thing.
If you're doing whole blood, it's just a quick sharp pain and then you lay down in a chair for a bit. For platelets, they generally do both arms and you have enough time to watch one of their movies. Not moving both arms for so long is a little weird but actually kind of enjoyable in a zen kind of way. But really, you're doing a good deed while watching Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.
 
D

Dyle

Member
Wish I could, but I always faint just from basic blood tests, giving more than that will fuck me up bad
 
H

Hoo-doo

Banned
ClayKavalier said:
Needles are scary though.
Click to expand...

Fear is not permanent though.

Needles used to be my biggest fear, but it's well and completely conquered once I had to perform and undergo regular blood drawings and signed up as a blood donor.
So go do a good thing and get over your irrational fear of needles. Two birds, one stone!
 
Y

yanipheonu

Member
Hoo-doo said:
Fear is not permanent though.

Needles used to be my biggest fear, but it's well and completely conquered once I had to perform and undergo regular blood drawings and signed up as a blood donor.
So go do a good thing and get over your irrational fear of needles. Two birds, one stone!
Click to expand...

I was about to say, used to be real bad about needles but after a few blood tests and better experiences with needles, I'm far more likely to be down for donating blood. Attitudes can change.
 
Sub_Level

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I used to go a lot. Would get free movie tickets and one time I saw the entirety of Memento there lol

Need to start again.
 
B

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
I was sick for a while so I had to cancel. Rebooking my appointment for Thursday. Thanks for the reminder.
 
S

sir_kevith

Member
I need to check of I can. Are you disqualified if you're prescribed a medication that requires subcutaneous injections?

I stopped doing the injections 7-8 months ago but I still have the prescription for Enbrel.
 
A

AYF 001

Member
You can't fool me, Republican!
8ebdef5443c394a1fa7782b6ba1c2f70.gif
 
T

TaterTots

Banned
There was one of those blood donation vans outside my work the other day. I thought about it, but I'm not sure if I can given the medications I'm on.
 
N

NEO0MJ

Member
I'm sickle cell so I can't. It would do great harm for me and the blood they take wouldn't be much good as it's short on all the stuff you need in good blood.
 
M

Madness

Member
DyslexicAlucard said:
Same here. Canada's policy on this is fucked up.
Click to expand...

I can understand how you are feeling, but please remember the safety of the donor receiving blood is the primary concern. I used to roganize blood drives for my high school or for work purposes. We would follow the same federal guidelines and while it seems discriminatory, there is a rationale for it.

As per thr Centres for Disease Control "Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men account for 70% of new HIV infections in the United States."

So what is easier when organizing a blood drive is by issuing such blanket bans, you avoid costly testing like Canadian Blood Services. Ban all people who recently left country, who had gay sex with men in the past 12 months (used to be ever,then 5 years now its 12 months), ban those who take propecia (finasteride/dutasteride).

When it comes to discrimination here, keep in mind even if they dropped from 1 year to 2 months like HIV researchers and gay advocates want,you still will have to discriminate for the sheer fact despite being 2% of the population, gay men make upore than half to 70% of all new HIV infections. Maybe it is discriminatory but the goal of blood donation is to make sure the recipient is safe. These kinds of things only came about because in the 80's all of a sudden people who needed blood became diagnosed with HIV or got Malaria, pregnant woman are given blood that has hormones like finasteride etc.

In fact there are even blanket bans being given to those whp have Crohns disease or multiple scleroris as well.
 
N

NewFresh

Member
Really sucks that a lot of people can't because of terrible backwards policy.

I give every few months, always have since college. My work giving days off for three donations a year made it even more worth it. If people want more of an incentive, tons of places will have blood drives with free gift cards, movie tickets, food, or sporting event tickets.

Also, people shouldn't wait till tragedies to donate blood, as well-intentioned as that is. When the system is flooded lots of that blood will go to waste.

http://www.academia.edu/386456/BAD_BLOOD_THE_9_11_BLOOD-DONATION_DISASTER_The_New_Republic
 
S

somecrazymember

Banned
SomedayTheFire said:
I'm not allowed. I'm gay.
Click to expand...

DyslexicAlucard said:
Same here. Canada's policy on this is fucked up.
Click to expand...

Platy said:
Sorry they don't allow someone 1/4 LGBT to donate, let alone 2/4
Click to expand...

Pai Pai Master said:
Yeah. :

I'm not gonna lie about being bisexual, so I can't donate.
Click to expand...

eosos said:
Would if they let gays
Click to expand...

WTF? Is this a general thing? Is there a real valid reason for this? I don't think we have this rule in my country
 
S

Seirith

Member
I use to but I am not an easy stick in my arms and had one tech wreck who would not give up when she could not give blood even though I told her to stop. I ended up with an extremely large and painful bruise and stopped going after that. I ended up missing a few days of work because my arm hurt so bad I couldn't move it. I wrote a letter with pictures to the Red Cross and I got back "oh sorry". Never went back after that.
 
P

Paganmoon

Member
Admiral Woofington said:
last time I tried they almost didnt accept it because I had gone to visit my home country of colombia recently.

If they dont want it I wont give it.
Click to expand...

It's normal to have an "exemption period" if you've recently visited a country that has a high risk of malaria, or has a recent outbreak of some other disease. I got a one month exemption once due to visiting Greece, iirc they'd recently had an outbreak of west nile virus.

It's not that they don't want your blood, it's that they need to make sure it doesn't carry any infections or viruses, and some infections/viruses don't show up in scans up until sometimes up to 6 months after infection.

It's for everyone's safety.
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
I used to do it a lot in high school, but their weight limit's too strict for me now. I've got the most common blood type, though, so if I can in the future, I will again. Needle fear and all...
 
M

metalslimer

Member
Madness said:
I can understand how you are feeling, but please remember the safety of the donor receiving blood is the primary concern. I used to roganize blood drives for my high school or for work purposes. We would follow the same federal guidelines and while it seems discriminatory, there is a rationale for it.

As per thr Centres for Disease Control "Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men account for 70% of new HIV infections in the United States."

So what is easier when organizing a blood drive is by issuing such blanket bans, you avoid costly testing like Canadian Blood Services. Ban all people who recently left country, who had gay sex with men in the past 12 months (used to be ever,then 5 years now its 12 months), ban those who take propecia (finasteride/dutasteride).

When it comes to discrimination here, keep in mind even if they dropped from 1 year to 2 months like HIV researchers and gay advocates want,you still will have to discriminate for the sheer fact despite being 2% of the population, gay men make upore than half to 70% of all new HIV infections. Maybe it is discriminatory but the goal of blood donation is to make sure the recipient is safe. These kinds of things only came about because in the 80's all of a sudden people who needed blood became diagnosed with HIV or got Malaria, pregnant woman are given blood that has hormones like finasteride etc.

In fact there are even blanket bans being given to those whp have Crohns disease or multiple scleroris as well.
Click to expand...

All blood is heavily tested regardless of whether or not you are gay or not.

The reason they have the bans is that is maybe possible you have fallen into a slight window when you wouldn't test positive
 
G

GAMEPROFF

Banned
I would love to, but most the time there is a option to donate blood, I have to work. They should do this at a saturday or something.
 
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