Donating blood

[jasregadoo]

I have a question…do you think it is safe to donate blood with this condition? If my RA is a mycoplasma infection, could I pass that on to some poor unsuspecting person? Because that would be too horrid to imagine.

I don’t really enjoy giving blood, but sometimes I have donated in the past, and I do enjoy the feeling of having helped someone in need. I haven’t donated since my diagnosis, at first because I felt too crummy, but now because I’m worried that I might make someone sick.

[Maz]

@jasregadoo wrote:

I have a question…do you think it is safe to donate blood with this condition? If my RA is a mycoplasma infection, could I pass that on to some poor unsuspecting person? Because that would be too horrid to imagine.

Hope this helps to answer your question, Jas – you have a good heart 🙂 :

http://arthritis.about.com/od/arthqa/f/blooddonation.htm

I received a donation of 3 units of blood – whole, plasma and platelets – after my first child was born and it was life-saving as I had gone into hemorrhagic shock and started “going down the tunnel,” and had to be revived. However, I still wonder to this day if I might have contracted something that had passed the blood screening process in the mid-80s that added to my pathogen load. In advance of any planned surgery now, I would elect to store my own blood, but I am grateful to whomever donated to help me out. I always felt I should donate in return, but as we lived in UK during the mad cow outbreak, this precludes our family from donating in the US. Mycoplasma infections can be passed just by sneezing on someone, but having confirmation of chronic infections, I wouldn’t want to pass that on to anyone. People who are healthy may not be affected, but usually people who receive blood donations need them as they are pretty sick already, so it could compromise them further.

[Jan Lucinda1]

I was told by the U.S. Red Cross people with RA could not donate.

[richie]

Quite right –I always used to give blood every 6 months for years –once I got sick –I was not eligible to give blood —ANY so-called auto immune disease disqualifies one from giving blood —
richie

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