Aspergers and donating blood

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I know that you certainly cannot pass Asperger's through blood!

My good friend goes through these blood donations with no problem. On the other hand, I'm NT and I do not like when the nurses press on my wrist to check my pulse. And I'm the one who sometimes faints, not him.

I've never donated blood because I've always been too small (all the blood drives at my school always said you had to be at least 100 pounds, and I'm only 85), but I used to have a lot of blood draws when I was young. I forget why exactly, something to do with my premature birth and finding ways to improve my growth. Regardless, I do remember it hurting, especially when they had to poke me several times because my veins were too small to be found. At that age, I found it quite interesting to watch the blood run up the tube, but now I suspect I'd just find it rather nauseating.

It's not Big Pharma who benefits most from donated blood:

It's the people who receive the life-saving transfusions.

Yes. Those who profit most, however, are those who sell the needed blood at extortionist rates - the patient either accepts the blood at the going market rate, or he dies. Of course, those pesky "Implied Consent" laws mean that an unconscious person has no choice, and if he later refuses to pay off the gouge, "Big Pharma" goes after him with their "Big Lawyers" and takes away his savings, transportation, home, and possibly even his livelihood.

I'm in the wrong business. I should run a blood and tissue bank, and heavily invest in legal firms, as well!

Yep....hence the need for National Health Insurance for the catastrophically ill.

There's an idea, use your electrical engineering skills to make a blood bank vending machine. You stick your arm in, it draws some blood and then spits out a cookie and a small gatorade. Every week you have your merchandiser come in and collect the blood and restock the cookies and gatorade. You could even advertise it as a "free" cookie machine. Only problem you'd have to account for is how to make sure people don't kill themselves trying to get too many free cookies-- that's a legal problem though, natural selection doesn't really mind.

Sounds exceptionally profitable to me.

Reminds me of the pharma machines from "The Perfect Day" by Ira Levin (1970) - every week, you stick your arm in, it reads your ID bracelet, mixes up a custom-made drug cocktail, and spray-injects it into your arm. The drugs keep you both healthy and docile - perfect labor for a perfect world. Just reverse the injector feed mechanism, and ...

A word of caution about donating blood--my cousin's husband donated "double reds" about a yr ago and had an episode of syncope without warning a few hrs after donating-- in spite of having eaten supper and drinking plenty of fluids after having donated. Up until that point, he donated as often as he could, wanting to offer that service to his community.

He was, unfortunately, driving when he passed out and had a very serious accident--trauma alerted to local trauma center with punctured lung and all but 2 ribs broken on L side as well as other injuries.

I used to donate but always felt very sick and washed out afterwards for a few days. I tend to have chronically low blood pressure and i am sure that doesn't help. I stopped giving blood because i can't take a day off work or lay around every time after giving blood. If a family member needed some, i would donate; but i just don't have it in me to donate regularly.

Until the aforementioned accident, i had never heard of someone passing out without warning after donating blood. I probably would have been more cautious myself, if i had known.

My cousin said they have had multiple people tell them now that such an episode has happened to them after donating. Fortunately, none of the other people that she spoke with had a motor vehicle accident because of it. Her husband made a full recovery but it was a long road.

I know, it's completely sick, but it's also America and we've never let something morally or ethically sick influence our decisions. You could be sitting on the next new "thing", depending on if you can find a good NT to market it.

I've been a blood donor since I was 18. I'm used to it and it feels great after the fact, knowing that I've helped someone in need.

I have a phobia of needles so no, I don't give blood. It's independent of my dislike of being touched.

$500 for a cookie and a cup of Gatorade. Damn what's one hell of a markup.

This thread made me think for the first time in my life about donating blood as a choice I actually feel enough in control of my life to make. I’m not sure my blood is good enough, though—for the patients needing it, that is; I’m sure it is good enough for mosquitoes and vampires.

By the way, is your total blood volume greater when you’re fat than when you’re thin?

^^
I'm not sure about that, but it could depend on how much you weigh.

You have to be at least 17 and 105 lbs to donate to the Red Cross, i think. It's been a while since i donated so that could have changed. If you contact the Red Cross, they can give you the list of criteria or you could probably google it.

I think it is a good thing to do for your fellow man if you are physically able to (see my other post; i don't do it anymore for health reasons), although i have some of the same misgivings as Fnord about the whole $$ part.

But, seriously, all medical stuff is so highly marked up that if you are going to boycott giving blood you may as well get a list together of the other medical stuff you want to boycott. Medical insurance has so skewed prices for everything that we have no idea of the actual cost of medical things anymore. We have gotten into this territory with some medical issues in our family that are not covered by insurance or are only partly covered. So screwy. But that's another topic so i won't hijack the thread.

In Finland you don't get money for donating blood, but people do it still.