# Gave blood for the first time



## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

Ok, so this isn't really a triumph over SA as it is over generalized anxiety. Basically I hate needles (who doesn't) but I have never been a baby about it or anything, until one day i was getting blood-work at a lab and the phlebotomist literally collapsed a huge vein in my arm and it was EXTREMELY PAINFUL. The incident basically traumatized me because the dude literally was jabbing my arm like 6 times before the vein collapsed and I really am not over exaggerating at all here. The only reason i didn't say anything was because my mom (who is a nurse) was right freaking there watching, and i didn't want to appear wimpy and i thought she would say something if it was as bad as i thought. Turns out afterwards she felt horrible and was just too scared to say anything (great parenting, not; but she has anxiety also so meh). Anywho, i saw the big red bus as my school today and decided to be brave and everything went well. So yeah, i am proud of myself. Now time for me to take a nap.


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## Overdrive (Sep 19, 2015)

That's nice, i've done it 2 times, was mainly to skip classes and have some food lol.
I know my blood type since then.


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## Kevin001 (Jan 2, 2015)

So this really wasn't the first time? Meh I give when I can.


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## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

I won't give blood again. The first time I gave blood, when I got up afterwards I started feeling all dizzy. Had to lie down again for 30 minutes and drink juice. I only gave half the amount my boyfriend gave at the time.

Even though I have the minimum weight required, I think I'm just too small of a person to give blood. I just have enough weight since I'm pudgy. 

At least I did find out my blood type from this. A positive.


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## SFC01 (Feb 10, 2016)

never have but may do one day as I`ve heard they give you a biscuit afterwards?


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## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

I can't believe how many Americans don't know their blood type even though they go to the doctor frequently.


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## Kevin001 (Jan 2, 2015)

komorikun said:


> I can't believe how many Americans don't know their blood type even though they go to the doctor frequently.


*raises hand

Meh no big deal


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

Kevin001 said:


> So this really wasn't the first time? Meh I give when I can.


No, this was the first time i ever donated blood. I have had my blood drawn before, but never for donating.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

SFC01 said:


> never have but may do one day as I`ve heard they give you a biscuit afterwards?


I did get a free movie ticket


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## A Being (Sep 23, 2017)

Lol when I first donated blood, the doctor had to readjust the needle like 7 times because I "dried out" constantly 
Small inconveniences aside, donating blood is awesome, especially if you have SA. You don't need to talk to people and maybe save someones life.


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## Kandice (Jan 26, 2017)

komorikun said:


> I can't believe how many Americans don't know their blood type even though they go to the doctor frequently.


I don't know my blood type. However, I've always wanted to know. They just tell me the results, but I never thought to ask them if they know my blood type from the exam. hhmmm maybe next time.


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## teuton (May 31, 2010)

Nice done man, I have an issue with needles as well. I have donated 2 times, first time I have passed out and the second time was a bit better but I still was bit sick for 2 days.

I want to overcome my fear and donate again.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

Yeh, did it twice, got low iron, never again.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

splendidbob said:


> Yeh, did it twice, got low iron, never again.


It wasn't until i entered the van and was signing the form that they told me that. I was actually really surprised. How did you figure out that your iron levels were low?


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

naes said:


> It wasn't until i entered the van and was signing the form that they told me that. I was actually really surprised. How did you figure out that your iron levels were low?


Oh, I just was feeling exhausted and fatigued a lot. I had to keep getting the doctors to test things, and my serum iron came back low (my haemoglobin was fine), also got ferritin tested (which is the stored iron) and that was getting on the low side. Also a ***** to get back up because the regular iron tablets are savage on the stomach.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

splendidbob said:


> Oh, I just was feeling exhausted and fatigued a lot. I had to keep getting the doctors to test things, and my serum iron came back low (my haemoglobin was fine), also got ferritin tested (which is the stored iron) and that was getting on the low side. Also a ***** to get back up because the regular iron tablets are savage on the stomach.


Dang. After donating did you wait the required time until getting your blood drawn again or were u just unlucky?


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## roxslide (Apr 12, 2011)

I would love to give blood but my phobia of needles is extreme. I always cry and have had multiple panic attacks over it (probably the only thing that has given me legitimate panic attacks). One time a nurse had to strap me to a table to give me a shot (she told me I was shaking too violently) I bought a diy blood type test kit but was even too afraid to use the pricker on myself.

One day I will challenge myself but not now...


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

roxslide said:


> I would love to give blood but my phobia of needles is extreme. I always cry and have had multiple panic attacks over it (probably the only thing that has given me legitimate panic attacks). One time a nurse had to strap me to a table to give me a shot (she told me I was shaking too violently) I bought a diy blood type test kit but was even too afraid to use the pricker on myself.
> 
> One day I will challenge myself but not now...


If it is that extreme of a fear then don't do it. There are plenty of people who donate so don't feel bad


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## tea111red (Nov 8, 2005)

cool.

i enjoyed having the needle go into my vein.


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## Steve French (Sep 17, 2012)

Good on ya mate. I'd like to do so, but I'm a big coward. I've had to get blood drawn numerous times to check for things and when taking certain medications and I passed out every single time. This has given me a huge fear of the process. And I believe they take a lot more than a couple vials.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

The only way anybody is getting my blood is if they kill me for it.


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## Anthony L (Nov 13, 2017)

Giving blood is a great thing to do. I also read somewhere that it is healthy for you in some way.

You motivated me to do the same now. Gotta check out some posts for that!


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

Turns out they had to discard it... I got a letter in the mail from them saying i received false positives on a screening of my blood so they had to get rid of it. Freaking lame.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

naes said:


> Turns out they had to discard it... I got a letter in the mail from them saying i received false positives on a screening of my blood so they had to get rid of it. Freaking lame.


How's that for irony?!

You go to give blood knowing that you haven't done anything risky, and they treat your blood as if you had.

:doh

The first time I gave blood for testing (July 2016 - sinus infection caused a hemorrhage IN my left eye!), I nearly pass out. I had no idea what to expect or that I was supposed to have eaten something for energy. I was at the hospital at the time.....my eye showed signs of another hemorrhage (bottom half of left eye went gray and black like TV snow) when I came to and I had them nurses walk me to the ER. They released me an hour later with "dehydration" :fall.

Well, naeS, Happy New Year anyway! I hope that this will not derail your progress.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

millenniumman75 said:


> How's that for irony?!
> 
> You go to give blood knowing that you haven't done anything risky, and they treat your blood as if you had.
> 
> ...


It won't! I did think it was extremely ironic too though. I remember that hemorrhage, it is better now tho right?


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

naes said:


> It won't! I did think it was extremely ironic too though. I remember that hemorrhage, it is better now tho right?


I had an appointment last January (2017 :lol I have to add that in now), and then the doctor said it was clearing up (other than a hairlike scar tissue), and then said "next appointment December".

So, December comes around, I test 20/15 in both eyes with my glasses :lol, and they diluted both my eyeballs (only the LEFT is affected), checked the pressures with the Crayola fat-marker like device with the tip cut off - all good. They scanned my eyeball with that Michael Jackson Rock With You laser video-like thing, and then the manual eye scan.










:lol - actually, for the OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) scan, the laser light was blue in the center and a red horizontal line would scan up and down to get a "lunar landscape of my retina" which would look like this:









^That's what a normal eye looks like, and mine looked like that!

He said I could come back in one to two years. They funny thing is I go to make the appointment and they said they can't schedule out into 2019 at that point, so they said "call us in October".

He said I am doing well - for a very rare case. Apparently, what happened to me is a 1 in 150,000 occurrence.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

millenniumman75 said:


> I had an appointment last January (2017 :lol I have to add that in now), and then the doctor said it was clearing up (other than a hairlike scar tissue), and then said "next appointment December".
> 
> So, December comes around, I test 20/15 in both eyes with my glasses :lol, and they diluted both my eyeballs (only the LEFT is affected), checked the pressures with the Crayola fat-marker like device with the tip cut off - all good. They scanned my eyeball with that Michael Jackson Rock With You laser video-like thing, and then the manual eye scan.
> 
> ...


Holy smokes! That is awesome that you are better now though.


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## Rachel NG (Dec 23, 2017)

That's something I can't do.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

Rachel NG said:


> That's something I can't do.


I had to get used to it myself - I had blood drawn three times during that eye emergency - that first time (for two vials), I almost passed out. The eye doctors were trying to figure out what caused my problems.

About four days after that first incident, I was sent back tot he ER by the doctors, had a CT scan, EKG, FOUR vials of blood drawn (I breathed and had no trouble!), and a urinalysis.......the doc thought I had had a stroke!

It was that I took two decongestants that had pushed my blood pressure into the lowest category of "high blood pressure". They panicked, but they had a right to be.

I have been on a low dose BP med and have been fine ever since.....that, I would bet is caused by the Paxil fat.

.......honestly, there are worse tests that can be done.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

millenniumman75 said:


> I had to get used to it myself - I had blood drawn three times during that eye emergency - *that first time (for two vials), I almost passed out*. The eye doctors were trying to figure out what caused my problems.
> 
> About four days after that first incident, I was sent back tot he ER by the doctors, had a CT scan, EKG, FOUR vials of blood drawn (I breathed and had no trouble!), and a urinalysis.......the doc thought I had had a stroke!
> 
> ...


It's funny, every time I have been near passing out it has been because of a nurse or doctor doing something to me.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

naes said:


> It's funny, every time I have been near passing out it has been because of a nurse or doctor doing something to me.


It's the anxiety/fear. I kinda had it. Now, I just make sure to breathe. That's the biggest problem - we don't breathe and the oxygen doesn't get to the brain. That's the most important part.

I remember absolutely sweating profusely around the time I almost passed out. They knew what to do right away, though. I awoke in a pool of sweat.

I naturally sweat a lot, but the Paxil makes it so much worse! I can't believe how bad....and embarrassingly bad, it can be. Sopping wet in a matter of minutes and I didn't even "overheat".

My recent runs were a test on this - three runs

8F, windchill of -7F
7F, windchill of -5F
5F, windchill of 5F (no wind means temp = wind chill)
....and I still drank almost two bottles of Gatorade after a run. Something is really wrong.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

millenniumman75 said:


> It's the anxiety/fear. I kinda had it. Now, I just make sure to breathe. That's the biggest problem - we don't breathe and the oxygen doesn't get to the brain. That's the most important part.
> 
> I remember absolutely sweating profusely around the time I almost passed out. They knew what to do right away, though. I awoke in a pool of sweat.
> 
> ...


It might be the anxiety but i feel like i had good reasons for each time lol. First time was when i had a freaking stent removed from my penor and let me tell you that hurt like god could only know (i still cant believe i wasn't put under for it even tho it only took like 5 minutes), then there was when i had a huge *** needle shoved into my shoulder joint from different angles and filled with platelets (PRP injections), and then there was the time a phlebotomist collapsed a huge vein in my left arm due to being a complete moron and jabbing it (i swear the dude must have never drawn blood before in his life)


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## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*all my contributions are for research only*

not valid as donor for any human to use my blood

screwed up blood from birth

diagnosed age 7 as having self-destroying immune system
sharpscratch

doctors fiddling with my blood. litres of glass bottles of Sandoglobulin https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-5302/sandoglobulin-intravenous/details

my youth in hospital

prednisolone steroids forced to swallow tablets causing my superiority which has lasted until today. redface, overweight, red skin. 85kg at school

in 20s I had to spend decades of effort to reach weight 70kg

age 30 splenectomy. fascinating for haemologists 
feeling a dog being experimented on with outrageous chemicals. more Sandoz bottles during operation. I shouted at surgeon: globulins do not patch my platelets or improve my ability to clot. they struggled manually to stop my bleeding afterwards


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## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

naes said:


> It might be the anxiety but i feel like i had good reasons for each time lol. First time was when i had a freaking stent removed from my penor and let me tell you that hurt like god could only know (i still cant believe i wasn't put under for it even tho it only took like 5 minutes), then there was when i had a huge *** needle shoved into my shoulder joint from different angles and filled with platelets (PRP injections), and then there was the time a phlebotomist collapsed a huge vein in my left arm due to being a complete moron and jabbing it (i swear the dude must have never drawn blood before in his life)


what sort of health issues did you have?


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## 0589471 (Apr 21, 2012)

That's great! Especially coming back from something so horrifying (a collapsed vein seriously!?) I've always wanted to, but I have issues with anemia. Plus I have a little tattoo on the inside of my wrist and I always get conflicting information about that too, despite it being done over 2 years ago.


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

komorikun said:


> what sort of health issues did you have?


Phlebotomist was from a random blood test, PRP injections for my EDS, and stent because of a huge kidney stone that required surgery to get out. Did i mention it was super painful? I was literally puking my guts out from the pain, and then super painful after surgery when i was legit peeing out so much blood that my pee was straight black and having the feeling of a piece of metal in my d1ck, to the removal of the stint which was horribly painful, they literally went in my weener hole and pulled it out (and it was deep! I culd feel this thing going past my sphincter muscles!). Oh, and here is the kicker, they told me to pee beforehand, so i tried but i was too anxious because, well my weiner was on the line here, and then as they were going in and eventually grabbing and pulling the stent out it started imitate the feeling of needing to pee super bad because your sphincter muscles hold the pee back, and the only way to relieve that feeling is to loosen up, but i didn't know that the stent was supposed to do that and they were telling me to loosen up and i wasn't because i thought i wuld piss all over them. They then lost the stent and had to go back in. THEN, I got after-pain which is just as bad as the kidney stones and supposedly rare, and idk how long that lasted but i remember wanting to die and going back to the ER and getting put on strong IV pain medicine again until it went away. So i was in the hospital like 3 days from a random bunch of massive kidney stones that woke me in the middle of the night. Worst experience of my life.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

naes said:


> It might be the anxiety but i feel like i had good reasons for each time lol. First time was when i had a freaking stent removed from my penor and let me tell you that hurt like god could only know (i still cant believe i wasn't put under for it even tho it only took like 5 minutes), then there was when i had a huge *** needle shoved into my shoulder joint from different angles and filled with platelets (PRP injections), and then there was the time a phlebotomist collapsed a huge vein in my left arm due to being a complete moron and jabbing it (i swear the dude must have never drawn blood before in his life)


That's extreme stuff.

If you got through that, you could get through anything!


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## naes (Nov 1, 2013)

millenniumman75 said:


> That's extreme stuff.
> 
> If you got through that, you could get through anything!


Who knows. Right now i feel like a pirate, so i feel pretty cool. I feel like i have to type neat for you, cuz you're like a father figure to me on here.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

naes said:


> Who knows. Right now i feel like a pirate, so i feel pretty cool. I feel like i have to type neat for you, cuz you're like a father figure to me on here.


:lol - I always type that way. At work, my emails are like letters :lol. Don't worry; I can read anything.

It would be like this:

Sean,

You should be good about yourself. You have been through things most people haven't. They could use your wisdom.

Thank you, 
John

:hahaTotally cheesy, formal, and professional-like. :help


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