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I shall have my servant bring me my leeches at once!
by MiddleEndian 5y ago
I shall have my servant bring me my leeches at once!
- treeman79 5y agoYou say this in jest. But how would one actually get rid of blood if you can’t donate?
- rufus_foreman 5y agoSkateboarding.
- 1-6 5y agoStop jesting.
- andymboyle 5y agoSome folks on certain medications (or just because) can have an increase in red blood cell production, sometimes called "blood thickening," I believe, and they can sometimes just get a prescription from a doctor to go to a donation facility. Or some facilities will still just allow you to do this if you tell them you need to get rid of excess blood for the reasons above, and then they dispose of it. (Not everyone requires a doctor's prescription for it.) That's just one use case, obviously, so there is a system for some to get rid of excess blood, at least, in a similar manner as you would donate.
- EvanAnderson 5y agoThere was some discussion[0] on HN a few weeks ago organizations (like the Red Cross[1]) not accepting donations from patients who require therapeutic phlebotomy (hemochromatosis patients, for example) because their donation provides the donor a benefit (and therefore isn't strictly altruistic). That sent me down an interesting rabbit hole of reading (link in discussion). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808856 [1] https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-process/before-during-after/iron-blood-donation.html https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-pr...
- andymboyle 5y agoVery interesting! Thanks for sharing.
- jfengel 5y agoI didn't realize that. I was briefly thought to have hemochromatosis, and had been "self-treating" via the Red Cross for years. It turns out I didn't have hemochromatosis. It was merely a bit high, but knowing that I donated so often (both whole blood and platelets, which you can do more often), there was concern that the "self-treatment" was covering up a real problem. I had not heard at the time that they wouldn't have wanted my blood. It was over a decade ago, and it's possible that the policy didn't exist then.
- dvdgsng 5y agoI have hemochromatosis and here in Germany it's impossible for me to donate blood. It's not actually forbidden, afaik, but no company want's to give 'contaminated' blood to patients, even though it would be perfectly fine.
- jfengel 5y agoDo you do phlebotomy some other way? Do you just draw the blood yourself and discard it? It amused me very much at the time to think that "bloodletting" might, in fact, be medically prescribed.
- deluxeroyale 5y agoPeople on steroids/that have been on need to do this regularly
- jleyank 5y ago“Give blood. Play rugby.”
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mikeodds 5y agoYou simply dump it in the street https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-60493339 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-60493339
- twic 5y agoI know life often imitates The Onion, but "passersby were amazed at the unusually large amounts of blood" was not one of the headlines i ever expected to cross the chasm.
- MiddleEndian 5y agoNo clue. I actually can't give blood because I get too dizzy and it would not be cost effective for them to have to babysit me for 30 minutes.
- mkoubaa 5y agoCupping
- mindcrime 5y agoTake up mountain biking.
- sophacles 5y agoJust stop by the barber. Mine has a 2-for-1 deal on thursdays: bloodletting and shave for 2 bits.
- brimble 5y agoYeah, my first thought was "holy shit, maybe finally an actual justification for regular bloodletting as a health practice!"
- giantg2 5y agoI believe there are one or two conditions that actually require it in modern medicine, but I forget the names.
- sodality2 5y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20170701150031/http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/06/health/he-31093 https://web.archive.org/web/20170701150031/http://articles.l... > Some people, he tells us, absorb too much iron, often as a result of a genetic condition called hereditary hemochromatosis. Over the years, the extra iron builds up slowly in people's bodies, causing damage to organs such as the liver and heart as well as the joints. > What contains a lot of iron? Red blood cells! That's what. Thus, the therapy for iron overload (as it's also called) is to draw pint after pint of blood from patients until the iron stores drop to an acceptable level, and thereafter draw the occasional unit of blood so those levels don't creep up again. Sounds very familiar if you replace "iron" with "PFAS".
- HalcyonCowboy 5y agoHemochromatosis is one, I was suspected to have it when I was younger and regular blood donations was an effective way to reduce my blood iron. Turns out I don't actually have the condition (it's genetic and doesn't go away as you age, whereas my extremely high iron resolved on its own), but I'm not mad about it, just a change I've welcomed.
- jamiek88 5y agoI was wondering the same as I am British and cannot legally donate in USA where I reside.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- invalidator 5y agoI wasn't able to find a reference, but I believe it's possible to go to a blood drive and have blood drawn and discarded. This provides cover for people who are ineligible but don't want their friends/coworkers to know. Alternatively, it's easy to DIY if you are so inclined. You just need some sterile needles and alcohol swabs.
- hda2 5y agoThis, but unironically. Science is, and has always been, about adjusting our flawed, incomplete models as new evidence emerge. We shouldn't let our ill-informed preconceptions prevent humanity from moving forward. If removing blood from the body takes forever chemicals with it and we have no practical way of filtering those chemicals out, then discarding the blood (yes, bloodletting) is the moral way to do it. Irrational and uneducated biases need not apply.