Donating blood?

[itsmekarenlee 129]

Has your Dr told you you can't donate blood ever again?

One of my friend's bariatric dr told her no because our bodies need all the Protein it can get. We fired or bariatric dr so we can't ask him. Curious what yours have said. We wouldn't be able to until next July anyway.

[bariatrick 7]

I volunteer at my local blood bank, and know that major surgery may prohibit you from donating for a specified period. If you required blood transfusions, you will likely be deferred for at least a year. Once you're well recovered, the criteria has more to do with your hematocrit (blood count), which is checked before you are permitted to donate. Bariatric patients may have issues with iron-deficiency anemia, particularly if they are not careful about taking their Vitamin and mineral supplements. I would check first with your surgeon, and if you get the O.K., go for it. I realize that you are no longer in contact with your surgeon, but you might want to run it past your family doctor or internist.....

[onikenbai 33]

Ontario is fairly consistent as it's a government run medical system here. The party line here is that, while it's not absolutely prohibited, it is very strongly discouraged for your own good. Due to lifelong malabsorption issues, it will be hard for you to keep your Iron levels up in the normal range, and donating blood will affect you a lot more than the average person. It will take you potentially weeks to bounce back energy-wise and it could take months to build your Iron level back up again.

I wouldn't even consider thinking about donating blood for at least 3 years after surgery. I'm 2.5 years out and I'm just now crashing because of iron problems; this is how long it's taken me to deplete my body's pre-surgery iron resources totally, despite taking regular multi-Vitamin and high doses of iron. Iron crashing feels awful: months of exhaustion, nausea, dizziness, walking into walls, not being able to work full time... skip it if you can.

I'm fairly sure that, barring massive disaster requiring all available emergency blood, you would be screened out of the donor pool as RNYers qualify as malabsorption issues. Unless you have a specific need to donate, just don't.