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I've seen the needle and the damage done
Yesterday I went to blood donors'.
If you're the sort of person who doesn't want to read about needles and veins and so on, then stop reading now.
Having got through the preliminary checks and paperwork, and done my best to fail the iron-level test (I failed to fail it at the last second), I was called up to donate.
A youngish-looking chap (by which I mean younger than me; I must be getting old) told me he was in training and asked if it was ok if he did the sticking-needle-in parts of the job on me. I assume that I had the right to say no, I wanted a properly trained person if I felt that way. As it was, I figure people have to train on someone, it might as well be me.
Having looked at my arm, he told me I had "very nice veins". I guess you take your compliments where you can find them, and it can't be a line you can use in very many situations. Nice in this case obviously means "easily accessible" - I'm very pale, and my veins are close to the surface.
They were also doing some testing of the alcohol-wipes they use to clean donors' arms - did I mind being experimented on ? No, I didn't. So, I had my arm wiped twice, and then smeared over an agar jelly plate - I guess the idea is they then try to grow cultures on the jelly, and see which bacterial nasties hadn't been removed from my arm by the wipes. Afterwards, I got wiped down again with the alcohol stuff to remove the jelly.
Trainee-guy put the needle in my arm (I'm incurably nosey, I watch the whole process) and I have to concede it was much more painful than normal. I was wondering whether I could fairly blame the trainee, but he told me that actually all the alcohol on my skin would have acted like lemon juice in a cut. Bah. Didn't bloody warn me of that, did you ?
I've been doning blood on and off since I was a student (when I wasn't recovering from piercings, underweight, or generally disorganised), and it's slightly surprising to note that in the last couple of years the technology seems to have shot forwards. Having been more or less the same since I used to accompany parents to sessions, it's suddenly gone all hi-tech.
The pouch in which the blood is stored used to hang from a scale - when it reached a certain weight, they disconnected you - and was occasionally joggled by a nurse to prevent clogging. These days there are funky electronic weighing machines which let the donor see how close they are to completion, and which rock the pouch back and forth automatically. Instead of a nurse saying "open and close your hand, dear" a little symbol of a hand flashes redly at you.
The network of tubes leading from your arm is much more complicated, allowing them to take the samples for testing from a little reservoir rather than manually taking three extra samples from your arm.
The prick-test (done on one finger) to check for iron levels use to involve a small glass tube which sucked up blood via capillary action (I believe). These days there are small plastic disposable pipettes which are (I was told on enquiry) absolute murder to use.
It slightly surprises me, in some ways. The procedure is increasingly complicated, and the list of conditions which debar you from donating is getting ever longer and more intricate. Collecting blood donations (which, the nurse told me, only last for 35 days before they become useless) must be incredibly expensive. Yet, the procedure still relies on the rather old-fashioned idea of taking someone else's blood out of their body. It really surprises me that synthesising blood artificially isn't yet possible (or, if possible, economically viable). I guess there's probably a lot of money in that area of research.
Also, a further question: if someone cuts an arm really badly, or loses a hand, or something then the policy is to tie something tightly round their arm above the cut. I know the application of tourniquets isn't really taught to first-aiders any more, but I'm under the impression that that's because it's a bit tricky to get right. A tourniquet is still an effective way of preventing blood loss.
While you give blood, they put a blood-pressure cuff round your upper arm (above the needle) and inflate it. This has the same effect as tying something really tightly round your arm.
Now: why is it that you do the same thing to both prevent bleeding and encourage steady bleeding ? Or is it that, without the blood pressure cuff, the blood would leave a donor's arm at an unhealthily fast rate ? Must remember to ask next time I'm there.
If you're the sort of person who doesn't want to read about needles and veins and so on, then stop reading now.
Having got through the preliminary checks and paperwork, and done my best to fail the iron-level test (I failed to fail it at the last second), I was called up to donate.
A youngish-looking chap (by which I mean younger than me; I must be getting old) told me he was in training and asked if it was ok if he did the sticking-needle-in parts of the job on me. I assume that I had the right to say no, I wanted a properly trained person if I felt that way. As it was, I figure people have to train on someone, it might as well be me.
Having looked at my arm, he told me I had "very nice veins". I guess you take your compliments where you can find them, and it can't be a line you can use in very many situations. Nice in this case obviously means "easily accessible" - I'm very pale, and my veins are close to the surface.
They were also doing some testing of the alcohol-wipes they use to clean donors' arms - did I mind being experimented on ? No, I didn't. So, I had my arm wiped twice, and then smeared over an agar jelly plate - I guess the idea is they then try to grow cultures on the jelly, and see which bacterial nasties hadn't been removed from my arm by the wipes. Afterwards, I got wiped down again with the alcohol stuff to remove the jelly.
Trainee-guy put the needle in my arm (I'm incurably nosey, I watch the whole process) and I have to concede it was much more painful than normal. I was wondering whether I could fairly blame the trainee, but he told me that actually all the alcohol on my skin would have acted like lemon juice in a cut. Bah. Didn't bloody warn me of that, did you ?
I've been doning blood on and off since I was a student (when I wasn't recovering from piercings, underweight, or generally disorganised), and it's slightly surprising to note that in the last couple of years the technology seems to have shot forwards. Having been more or less the same since I used to accompany parents to sessions, it's suddenly gone all hi-tech.
The pouch in which the blood is stored used to hang from a scale - when it reached a certain weight, they disconnected you - and was occasionally joggled by a nurse to prevent clogging. These days there are funky electronic weighing machines which let the donor see how close they are to completion, and which rock the pouch back and forth automatically. Instead of a nurse saying "open and close your hand, dear" a little symbol of a hand flashes redly at you.
The network of tubes leading from your arm is much more complicated, allowing them to take the samples for testing from a little reservoir rather than manually taking three extra samples from your arm.
The prick-test (done on one finger) to check for iron levels use to involve a small glass tube which sucked up blood via capillary action (I believe). These days there are small plastic disposable pipettes which are (I was told on enquiry) absolute murder to use.
It slightly surprises me, in some ways. The procedure is increasingly complicated, and the list of conditions which debar you from donating is getting ever longer and more intricate. Collecting blood donations (which, the nurse told me, only last for 35 days before they become useless) must be incredibly expensive. Yet, the procedure still relies on the rather old-fashioned idea of taking someone else's blood out of their body. It really surprises me that synthesising blood artificially isn't yet possible (or, if possible, economically viable). I guess there's probably a lot of money in that area of research.
Also, a further question: if someone cuts an arm really badly, or loses a hand, or something then the policy is to tie something tightly round their arm above the cut. I know the application of tourniquets isn't really taught to first-aiders any more, but I'm under the impression that that's because it's a bit tricky to get right. A tourniquet is still an effective way of preventing blood loss.
While you give blood, they put a blood-pressure cuff round your upper arm (above the needle) and inflate it. This has the same effect as tying something really tightly round your arm.
Now: why is it that you do the same thing to both prevent bleeding and encourage steady bleeding ? Or is it that, without the blood pressure cuff, the blood would leave a donor's arm at an unhealthily fast rate ? Must remember to ask next time I'm there.
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I am the sort of person who doesn't want to read about needles and veins and so on... I'm also the sort of person who is incurably curious about things I don't like / am squeamish about.
I'm now sitting at work trying to disguise my slight nauseau / creepy skin feeling and it's all my own fault.... *sigh*
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Labelling any cuture cut-tags "Elethiomel, you don't want to read this" isn't going to help either, is it :)
Cuture ?
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I really should think about considering doning - it'd probably help me get over my fear. Is high blood-pressure something that precludes one from doning?
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I don't think it can be, as (as far as I'm aware) they don't ask you about your blood pressure, or measure it.
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Yep, getting the same thing here...
Fortunately I'm one of the people they won't let donate (for size reasons) so I don't have to feel guilty about avoiding it!
Another one...
I'm off for a sugarcube now that the funny grey hazy bit has passed...
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Synthetic plasma is becoming slowly more common, too.
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So I gave when I was home in September 2002.
And I tried this February too, but they wouldn't have me till I'd been away from Vanuatu for 6 months.
This is all political rather than health-based, unfortunately. Meanwhile, there's a shortage of blood.
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Relatively recently, I had an American friend who couldn't donate in the UK because he'd been in America recently (it was last year, when having to be the US recently banned you for reasons which currently escape me), and couldn't donate in the US because he'd lived in the UK.
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??
Bad typing day. Having been to the US, even.
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In this case, "home" is the UK, where I grew up, and where I am usually allowed to give blood.
As for where I live, New Zealand for the time being.
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Vanuatu 1990-1993 (Port Vila)
New Zealand 1993-2005 (Hastings, Auckland, Wellington)
Blood donor since I was at university, on and off
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For some reason I thought I couldn't. Perhaps I got the dates mixed up.
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As you say, all political -- they want to be able to say that the guy who died recently did so because he ate infected beef during a 28-day stay in the UK rather than because the beef sold in Japan might have been infected...
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Mind you I haven't ever given blood, and can't see myself being able to for at least another year. Mutter.
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According to my brain (and not necessarily facts!):
I reckon that it's because with a tourniquet you're trying to stop blood from arteries going down your arm, and with a pressure cuff you're trying to stop blood from veins going up your arm.
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it's slightly surprising to note that in the last couple of years the technology seems to have shot forwards
I was at the hospital for a blood test on Wednesday and was somewhat scared by their new blood sampling tech. I barely felt the sharp thing go in and couldn't feel it at all once it was in, but my blood was escaping quite easily through the resulting hole. Something very creepy about that. In some ways, I'd rather "injuries" of that kind really hurt, to point out that the hole needs fixing !
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I'm now in for a long period of not doning, because of India. I reckon that probably for about half my adult life I've been ruled out for one reason or another, and that's without indulging in any of the more bizarre practices they list (having sex with people who've had sex with people who've...) The recent additional ruling that you can't give blood if you've received any in the last 15 years must have cut out another big swathe of people.
I believe that surgeons are more economical with blood these days, in that they try to avoid spilling as much during operations, to reduce the need for topping-up. But I think also that we import a load of blood from overseas.
Blood doning is about the only occasion when I drink tea. This has probably set up a strange subconscious association...
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I was listening to some sort of Neil Young best-of last night and the line stuck as it went past and seemed appropriate :)
A question
Re: A question
Re: A question
Re: A question
Re: A question
And yes the tests are a consequence of bioterror alarms. And yes, the lab next door is very happy about all the extra money entering the poxvirus field :o)
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There's two reasons they don't teach tourniquets. The first is, as you say, because it's actually very hard to get right and takes more training than first-aiders get, and most first-aiders never use the training on a daily basis and so forget. It's also only worthwhile on a small number of the injuries people are likely to get - they're either too small to justify such a drastic step, or on the torso or head where you can't do it at all. 99 times out of a 100 a first aider will do way better at stopping blood loss by direct pressure on the bleeding bit (and raising it above the heart if feasible).
The other reason is that once you put an effective tourniquet on, everything downstream of it starts to die. Depending on just how effective the tourniquet is, you've got something like 20 minutes before there's permanent tissue damage. First aiders tended to use tourniquets rather than direct pressure as a first line treatment for bleeding, because direct pressure usually hurts a lot (you're pressing on the injury) whereas a tourniquet is just very uncomfortable, and it's less messy. This did lead to situations where people lost most of an arm because of a tourniquet aimed at stopping some minor bleeding in a finger.
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I've three times before tried my best to donate blood, but every single time I fail the iron test. Then they do the anaemia blood test on me, which is always ok.
So I'm never anaemic, I just don't have enough excess iron in my blood to make it sink in the test tube :(
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(Anonymous) 2005-04-07 11:59 am (UTC)(link)no subject
You should talk to
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Which is probably good for other people rather than bad :-)
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Discovering an ex had once had a homosexual encounter leaves me a VERY grumpy-non-donor. But rumour had it they were going to lift that condition.
Yea you for donating, I feel crap they wont let me.
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If you're a bloke who's ever had "oral or anal sex with another man, regardless of whether you used a condom" you can never donate.
If you're female and have had sex with a man meeting the above condition then you can't donate for a year afterwards.
So depending on recently your ex was exed, you might be ok.
I can simultaneously see their point (statistics are on their side), and also think it's stupid.