Just thinking about blood donations, realizing I had not made an appointment to donate in a couple of months. How many of us donate blood regularly? How many sporadically?

Whole blood comes in handy during large scale disasters, to say nothing of regular consumption.

I served a mission for the LDS Church in the British Isles and as such I am on deferral, meaning I can't donate!

Mike

I've donated regularly almost every 6 weeks for the past 32 years. I can't calculate how many gallons that is, but they greet me as Old Timer at our local blood bank. Unlike most of the rest of the country which uses the Red Cross, Puget Sound has its own blood program. Nice folks. I've worked in volunteer health capacities where I see the benefit of a steady supply of blood. Its easy enough to do, and no good reason not to for me.

There are all sorts of travel restrictions and precautions - travel into yellow fever or malarial zones etc. I had a 40 hour RT trip to the Brazilian national capital (cut out of the heart of the Amazon) on my donor record for about 3 years, just in case I contracted yellow fever.

Then I would guess I've given about 32-33 gallons. Yow, it sounds like alot now. The every 6 week thing works pretty well if you schedule your next appointment when you're leaving the last one. But there have been occasional interrupts for vacation, business travel, babies born etc. Things happen. The one thing I've resisted is donating by apheresis, which is where they hook you up and they draw out platelets instead of whole blood - platelets being the most commonly used blood product in ERs etc. You can donate platelets more often but it takes longer and I have a problem with needles and mentally I just can't get past the thought of being hooked up that way. Basically though my blood type isn't exceedingly rare or suited to platelet draws, so I think its ok not to do apheresis.

The only medications that cause permanent or indefinite deferral from blood donation are Tegison (psoriasis), growth hormone (from human pituitary glands), and insulin from cows (imported). Other meds may have a wait period until you can donate, maybe unless your history is suspicious to the person asking the questions.

Blood donation does not negatively affect immunity in healthy persons nor does it improve immune health. Persons with decreased immunity are not allowed to donate.

While it's been a long time since I last tried to donate, they told me (politely) that I couldn't come back since I lived in the UK during part of the BSE scare.

I was a very regular donor until I was diagnosed with aortic valve stenosis. Not lying at my next regularly scheduled donation, I was told I was ineligible with that condition. Three years passed and last year, I got a brand new valve, and [/i]mirabile dictu[i], I can donate once again. It is good to get back inthe swing of things, although I am a piker compared to you guys. I am perhaps somewhere around 15 gallons, tops.

I do it about twice a year, so I guess that counts as sporadically? Biggest problem is time, the donation truck only comes around a few times and I can't always make it.

There was some saying that blood donation isn't good for the immune system, you are draining away all the antibodies, proteins, and immune cells, thus overwork your system to reproduce them. Any evidence for/against that? I looked online but found nothing.

I switch between the aphresis and blood donations and donate up to 8 times a year. With aphresis in the majority.

Fortunately there is a Red Cross donation center about 2 miles away. They have also computerized appointments which makes sceduling easier.