this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Booked in for blood donation on Monday. Lifeblood texted me and were basically like "yo, heard you got that A+ blood, which we need. Gimme and we'll give you snacks" which works on me.
I'm A-. Gave blood a few times when I was younger and it was always hard because my veins don't obligingly pop up. They just took a punt and stuck it in, and if that didn't work they'd try somewhere nearby. The last time I had a few needle marks on my arm for quite a while, made me feel self conscious as I had to work in short sleeves, and I worked at the kind of place where teaspoons went missing on the regular, not a good look. Looking back I feel bad about being a wuss.
Pretty sure I'm O+, I've got that basic blood. But I got blacklisted when I was younger from donating, first time I went in I managed to get knocked out and go into full convulsions (unfortunately was there with my mum and it traumatised her for a bit afterwards ๐ ). Few weeks later I got a letter basically telling me thank you for coming but please don't come again.
O+ is common, but it is also one of the most in-demand.
O- is the holy grail.
O- can go into anybody, O+ can go into 80% of the population. In a pinch. It's better to match blood types exactly if possible. Which is tricky if the patient is AB+/-, those are rare blood types and always in strong demand.
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/blood-groups
I'm O+ as well. Donated as a teenager. First one went well. Numbers 2, 3 and 4 not so well due to low blood pressure. I was told maybe when I'm older to try. I haven't because I know me better now. At least we tried.
That's a safety issue for sure - better to keep you safe than have something worse than convulsions happen when you give blood!!! You are your number one priority and I wouldn't ask someone to give blood if they have issues with it (even being squeamish can lead to fainting)
๐๐
In my defence, I felt fine ๐ It's just I have a memory gap where one minute I was sitting up, and the next I was staring at the roof with Mum panicking nearby. So don't know what happened but it just didn't go well.
I've had to do blood tests since then and they generally go okay as long as they can find a vein, but haven't donated since that happened.