h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It is one of my regrets that I did not give blood in the window between leaving the Witnesses and having gay sex.

TRiG.

Ho ho. It is a regret of mine that I couldn't give blood, having had Hepatitis B. Or have they found a work-around for that?

If only the ticks and mosquitoes were as picky...

They have a blood dive occasionally at work. I have to politely decline. if asked I say 'they don't want it' and leave it at that.

Recumbentman, in the UK's rules it says that you shouldn't give blood if you've had hepatitis or jaundice in the past year, or if you've ever had hepatitis C in your life. Maybe it has changed for hepatitis B. Or it could be different in the UK from Ireland.

Clive - here you can go through the process, but there is a part just before you give blood when you go into a thing like a voting booth. The doc has given you a paper with two bar codes on. One is next to a green tick and indicates that your blood can be used. The other is next to a red tick and indicates that your blood an not be used.

There is no way just by looking that anyone knows which sticker you put on, and therefore people who have reasons for not wanting to explain why they are not going to give blood can get away from some of those overly penetrating colleagues who just won't let it drop. A friend of mine does that because he is not ready to come out to everyone. It saves him a lot of hassle.

http://www.blood.co.uk/can-i-give-blood/exclusion/

So you have to celibate for 12 months in order to donate.

It's better than a life-time ban. That's some progress.

But my attitude right now is **** 'em them don't want my blood I shan't offer it. Their loss.

That is a clever process, Sho. I can see where it could come in handy. Of course, my workplace is far too small to have blood drives. Or anything else organised.

TRiG.

mine don't either but I'm working on that and I'm well aware that given my company's attitude to gay people it would be good to know that those safeguards will be in place.

The last time I tried giving blood here I was told I couldn't because of mad cow disease. Well done that faceless suit who one day decided it would be a good thing to maximise profits by feeding the scrapings of cow bones to other cows.

luckily for me I wasn't in the uk during the period that the German red cross says is critical for mad cows. But I wonder what people in the UK do?

Asides the exclusion for being gay, I recall, from the last time I checked the exclusion criteria, I was perminantly banned from donating blood, because of having recieved a blood transfussion myself, before a certain date... ; I think* that may be due to the risk of my having recieved blood contaminated with prions (CJD and mad cow disease), as I had a transfussion before they screened for some of it... Still not entirely sure why an entire group, as for homosexuals, is excluded, when the blood taken is one assumes checked for the presence of viruses, and the last I read about HIV transmittion, was that the rate of new infections was higher amongst hetrosexuals than it was amongst homosexuals (though I could be out of date with that now, cna't quite recall how long ago I read it...)

Well presumably (apart from vegetarians) if they were in the UK they would have been eating mad cows themselves, anyway. The blood wouldn't pose any greater risk than their own.

I'm tempted to try giving blood again purely to see how many reasons I'm disqualified for this time. Last time it was quite a few.

I always get sent away for some silly thing. Last time it was because I was waiting on a hospital appointment - for physiotherapy!

that is a pretty random reason to turn you away It might not have been the prion/CJD thing, for the blood transfussions I recieved, it might have been something else, they didn't check the blood for, prior to whatever date it was (I had pints of transfusions in 1993) Annoying thing is/was, that I always had sucha phobia of needles... but after having spent so much time in hospitals, and having so many drips and needles stuck into me, I utterly lost any phobia I had... so could/would happily give blood, but am then immediately told I can't I wonder if it excludes me being an organ donar too... Mind, I plan to pretty-much exaust most of my organs prior to dieing

In France there was a time when they didn't treat the blood properly or something after it was donated, resulting in loads of HIV-contaminated blood being given out to people. Then, when they realised what was happening, some people in place decided that, oh well, they had so much of that in stock, they might as well keep delivering it (only prescribing it to people who had already received some, of course, they weren't monsters!)...
Big big sanitary scandal, when it was finally revealed.

So if you got a transfusion during whatever period that was (might have been the 80s, or the 90s, can't remember now ), you can't donate blood. Because some irresponsible idiot might have caused you to contract hiv.


Then of course, there's being gay, having had unprotected sex within the last can't-remember-how-many weeks, having lived in the UK during mad cow time, having had hepatitis, having had a tattoo or piercing done recently, having done drugs recently, ...

And of course all the stuff that means you're not in good health, obviously (if you're taking certain meds, if you're sick, if you're aneamic,........)

I'm aneamic, myself.

When I go the same things happen every single time. First the doctor will go on about a famous jazz trumpeter with the same surname as me and asks me if we're related.

Then they ask me if I'm feeling ok because my blood pressure is low, then when I ask them what it is and say, "actually that's a little on the high side for me" they ask if I'm an athlete.

Then when I'm actually lying there with my blood slowly trickling out, and there have been about 3 people on the other side of me in the time it takes to get a half a pint out they laugh and say I must be Scottish because I'm so stingy. (sometimes they say Swabian, but it's usually "scottish")

Every. Single. Time.

Phlebotomy humor.

If you brought a double bass, Sho, they'd ask you 'how do you get that under your chin'.

It must have been Hepatitis C that I had. That is something I ought to know, isn't it. Must ask my doc.

I gave blood for the first time last month. Laura wanted to, but couldn't because she'd been exposed to mumps in the previous six weeks.

"That's ridiculous!" she said "I feel fine! I don't even have mumps!"

Two days later, mumps.

Also, you don't get drunk appreciably faster after losing a pint. Might see if they can take two next time. I'm a big lad, I can take it.