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You know what? You can save lives even if you don't have some rare and newsworthy antibody in your blood. All kinds of patients need whole blood and plasma. C
by OliverJones 8y ago
You know what? You can save lives even if you don't have some rare and newsworthy antibody in your blood.
All kinds of patients need whole blood and plasma.
Cancer patients need platelets.
There's only one place to get most of this stuff: human donors. So look here and go do it!
http://www.redcross.org/support/blood-donation http://www.redcross.org/support/blood-donation
- ciconia 8y agoDonating blood is easy! It takes just a few minutes (for whole blood donation, plasma and platelets donation is more involved), and there are health benefits [1]. More than that, helping to save lives is a great way to start your day. Good feeling, good karma! [1] https://www.medicaldaily.com/why-donating-blood-good-your-health-246379 https://www.medicaldaily.com/why-donating-blood-good-your-he...
- cathhhhji 8y ago>Good feeling Until you pass out or get tired of all the spam mail begging you to donate again.
- d3ad1ysp0rk 8y agoYou should not pass out, and the mail/email can be easily unsubscribed from.
- esrauch 8y agoAlmost no junk mail can be easily unsubscribed from in my experience.
- ktosobcy 8y agoI unsubscribed for almost all junk mail without any problem (save for spam, but that's different matter)...
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoHow? Do you just write back and ask them to stop?
- fouric 8y agoMany literally have a link at the bottom that says "unsubscribe". I've received emails from dozens of different services and companies over the past few years and every single one, without exception, has had this feature. It's prevalent enough that my email client even attempts to find it and presents me with a button in the UI if it does.
- zokier 8y agoNotably CAN-SPAM act requires spam to have effective and visible unsubscribe links. While this doesn't impact off-brand Viagra and Nigerian prince spammers, most legitimate US businesses (such as American Red Cross) should be compliant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoAh, I thought we were discussing snail mail.
- ktosobcy 8y agoWhy the minuses? I don't share my email all over the web, I usually don't sign up to many websites. If I do in majority of cases (99% I would say) there is included option to manage my subscriptions and/or unsubscribe directly from the message... and it works.
- fouric 8y agoEvery email that I have received from a legitimate organization in the past several years has had a one- or two-click unsubscribe link at the bottom. I can't get access to the Red Cross' reminder emails right now, but given what the Red Cross is, it's rather likely that the parent is telling the truth. Edit: parent
- esrauch 8y agoSorry, I meant physical mail not email.
- tspiteri 8y agoMy pressure sometimes would drop just after the donation while still in the seat, until I figured out it was due to dehydration; the one thing that solves the issue completely for me is drinking plenty of water the day before.
- projektfu 8y agoIt's a little difficult. If you have type O blood the American Red Cross will bug you incessantly when you're able to donate again. While it's nice to be in demand, it's still annoying. You can ask them to knock it off but there's no option for once a month reminders.
- creaghpatr 8y agoI hate to say it but you are right about this. I donate frequently and encourage everyone who can to do it but the Red Cross spam operation is absolutely disgraceful they have zero shame.
- tomerv 8y agoObviously, don't donate blood if it causes you to pass out. But that's a pretty rare side effect, and mostly people can donate without any negative impact.
- sbjustin 8y agoI'm just glad you were able to corellate saving lives and spam emails. /s
- andrewclunn 8y agoYou speak the truth. Vampires is what the red cross should call themselves. Of course, being bluntly honest about the aggressive nature of these organizations, or sharing any negative related to a percieved "social good" simply MUST be silenced! Unsurprising.
- Androider 8y ago...those who donated blood a minimum of once a year had an 88 percent lower risk of heart attacks than those who did not donate. Donating blood is one of the easiest thing you can do to prevent all kinds of cardiovascular disease! Thanks for the reminder, I will be going to donate.
- Tharkun 8y agoThis part of the article struck me as strange: > You can reduce your blood viscosity by donating blood on a regular basis, which eliminates the iron that may possibly oxidize in your blood. The whole reason why blood is red, why red blood cells carry oxygen, is because of the iron, which is oxidized to transport oxygen ... ? Given that only healthy folks are allowed to donate blood, surely there's a fair amount of selection bias going on?
- brann0 8y agoDrinking water reduces blood viscosity too. Or so I've been told.
- delsarto 8y agoI suffer from gout; there's a lot of theories about giving blood to help lower uric acid levels. Some people claim releif from symptoms after donating. In theory, it sounds plausable... "Studies have shown that iron acts like a catalysis for the crystallization of uric acid. So if your iron serum levels are lower it will keep the uric acid in your blood longer to give your kidneys more time to remove it from your system." https://www.reddit.com/r/gout/comments/70l8vp/reducing_uric_acid_levels_by_donating_blood/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gout/comments/70l8vp/reducing_uric_...
- projektfu 8y agoIt's a disorganized sentence containing two separate notions. One is that having fewer red cells can reduce the viscosity of blood so it doesn't clot as readily, which is good for sedentary people. The other is that bleeding will reduce the overall age of red cells and thus reduce the amount of unusable methemoglobin, containing oxidized iron. Iron (II) is in hemoglobin, Iron (III) is in methemoglobin.
- aplummer 8y agoMy old man actually _has_ to donate blood once a month due to excess iron from a condition.
- geetfun 8y ago
- torstenvl 8y agoDonating blood is easy for some people. Other people need to be celibate for a year.
- rainbowmverse 8y agoOr forever, depending on the country.
- boznz 8y agoRegular Blood donor in the UK but cannot give blood in NZ because of mad cow disease.. Even though I've been vegetarian for over 35 years!
- maxerickson 8y agoWhat it amounts to is that there isn't really a shortage of donors (there are brief local shortages). So they are optimizing away really small risks.
- bjoli 8y agoHomosexual men are still banned from giving blood in many countries. In Sweden this changed less than 10 years ago. In Germany that changed in 2017, and in Austria they are still not allowed to give blood.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoSame in Denmark, they're still not allowed. I donate as often as possible, for my homosexual friends who want to, but can't.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Symmetry 8y agoI donate platelets every month. It takes a while but you can watch a movie and it doesn't leave you feeling as drained as whole blood donation does. But which sort of donation does the most good is partially dependent on what your blood type is.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoI actually like the light-headedness from donating blood. It's a mild little buzz, rather pleasant.
- mikec3010 8y agoI wonder why they don't donate it to the patient? Or conversely, why they don't pay the donor at the hyper-inflated healthcare rates that everyone else in the "network" charges?
- jdietrich 8y agoIt costs money to draw, test, process, transport and infuse blood. The British healthcare system is single-payer and incredibly efficient, but an NHS hospital pays the NHS blood service £124.46 ($168.59) for a unit of red blood cells. Paying donors for blood was a major contributory factor in the tainted blood scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s; there's an unpleasantly large overlap in the Venn diagram of "people who are desperate for cash" and "intravenous drug users".
- KozmoNau7 8y agoMy ferritin levels are quite high, and anecdotally I started feeling better after I started donating blood. It's a win-win, so I donate as much as I can (which is every 3 months here). They've also started sending a text message every time my blood has been used to help someone, which is one of the best warm and fuzzy feelings ever, that knowledge that you've made a genuine difference in some other person's life.
- Fnoord 8y ago> Donating blood is easy! Not if you have belonephobia/aichmophobia. I'm not sure how common that is, but I have it. I need a benzo (oxazepam, or stronger) before the needle. There are other ways to do something good for society, and doing one good deed doesn't mean you're a good person (ie. a net positive karma, if you believe in such a thing). That's disillusioning yourself just like every form of donating does. Donating is not about you feeling good, it is about helping someone else. You feeling good is still a selfish reason.
- testvox 8y agoWhat is wrong with being selfish?
- Fnoord 8y agoThat's a different debate. I have a problem with the self-delusion that its an entirely selfless charity thing while the GP articulates selfish reasons such as "you will feel good" and "karma" (assuming the reader believes in such concept).
- dwaltrip 8y ago> Donating is not about you feeling good, it is about helping someone else. It's about both. There is nothing wrong with feeling good for helping someone. Of course, you need to actually have helped someone, but that goes without saying.
- danShumway 8y agoI actually used to occasionally feel weird about helping people because it made me feel good. I would sometimes even go out of my way to make sure I didn't feel good when helping, to try and do it in the most painful way possible. What swapped me on that was that I realized I was often a more generous, effective helper when I could feed off the positive energy that came along with it. I want to help people because they have inherent value, not for my own gain or status. So I asked myself, 'would the type of person who is completely selfless make themselves less effective as a helper just so that they could be assured that they were selfless?' And of course they wouldn't. Being selfless is about considering other people to be more important than you. I was falling into the trap of treating my own moral status as the end goal; I was still considering other people to be less important than what I felt my actions said about me. It's like when people assume that the opposite of pride is self-deprecation and then spend the exact same amount of time and energy obsessing over why they're bad at something.
- daxorid 8y agoThese appeals to saving lives would be entirely unnecessary with just one small fix. The supply of blood would be dramatically increased if the United Blood Services would simply pay $50 per unit. After testing and transportation, a unit of blood costs hospitals about $400. With transfusion services, the hospital charges the patient between $1400 and $3000 depending on provider. Adding a mere $50 to that in order to permanently solve supply constraints would be a huge win for everybody.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoPart of why I don't donate blood is that the Red Cross has a history of misappropriating funds and hasn't been honest about how their money has been used. It's been a multibillion dollar industry for decades, and it sure seems to me that I'd donate my time and blood only to enrich other people.
- aleksei 8y agoI would hope only a very small part. Sure, don't give money, but it's not like your blood will be diverted to some offshore blood haven. It's one of the few things you can be pretty sure will be given to people in need.
- aleksei 8y agoI believe the point for not paying for donating blood is to prevent people from lying about their health when donating. Anyway, saving a life should be far more valuable than 50 bucks. BTW, a huge win for everybody would be not to have to pay ridiculous amounts for a bag of donated blood.
- ythn 8y ago> Cancer patients need platelets. If I donate blood will cancer patients get the blood/platelets/etc. for free or will my blood be sold at a profit at some level of healthcare bureaucracy?
- simonebrunozzi 8y agoUnfortunately this is a big issue in many places around the world.