Donating Blood

[Louis]

Fellow red-blooded cylists,

We are constantly being hounded for blood around here (at work, that is) but I've been reluctant to contribute, mostly because I don't know what impact it will have on my riding. (I know, that's kind of selfish.)

Have you ever donated in the middle of the cycling season, and how much of an effect did it have on you?

Louis

[pale scotsman]

Do what I do and just tell them you are a habitual IV drug user and they'll leave you alone. ;) Seriously though unless you are competing that week it shouldn't be a problem. They say it takes up to 2 weeks to replace the red blood cells after a donation. I've ridden the next day after donating and felt a little more spent than usual. By the third day I'm fine. Then again I'm just a weekend warrior type rider.

[dgauthier]

I was all set to tell you have a heart and go ahead and donate, when I found the paragraph below at this nondescript link: http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11894.cfm

"Your body will replace the blood volume (plasma) within 48 hours. It will take 4 to 8 weeks for your body to completely replace the red blood cells you donated. The average adult has 8 to 12 pints of blood. You will not notice any physical changes related to the pint you donated."

Four to eight weeks!?!? That's a long time to be at 11/12th's of your normal red blood count. I am not a doctor, but if I were racing, I wouldn't do it. By all means donate in the off season, however.

If you're not racing, there's no reason not to.

Hey, if you're into high altitude training to increase you O2 efficiency, you might want to see if giving blood has a similar effect.

[Chief]

I have given blood and ridden the next day. To tell you the truth I never noticed the difference, then again I wasn't racing. For me it was simply an excuse for being dropped again. :crap:

[Bruce H.]

I donated late last spring. Found I was slightly tired when I taught my first couple of spinning classes, then all was fine. Drink lot's of fluids and go easy for the first week. You might just save someone's life!
Bruce H.

[H.Frank Beshear]

My wife is a 4 gallon donor. After seeing what a difference it would make for me while I was at Omaha in isolation, she started donating. She is more than half way to 5 gallons. Btw she's 5'2" 115#s.It's a gift. Donate. Take care Frank

[Dekonick]

when I donate I just use EPO to replace my RBC's -

Just kidding!

[vaxn8r]

dgauthier has it exactly right. It takes about 8 weeks to completely replace those red cells. In reality you will feel a bit more tired while riding for a day or two and then you probably wouldn't notice. Having said that, it would be in my mind psychologically. So if I were racing, I would not do it. Otherwise, I have done it and it's no big deal. They tell you not to exercise the day you donate. I do it anyway. You just get more winded. If you do, definitely make the extra effort to stay hydrated.

[little.man]

If you are not racing, then I would say donate. Otherwise, wait until the off season. I have donated regularly for quite a few years. It seems to take me longer to recover from it than it used to. However, I seem to remember reading that after you donate, your red blood cells that are left will learn to carry more oxygen to make up for the lack. There have been times when I have donated and then found that I was much stronger 4 - 6 weeks later. There are articles that say you only need a day or week to recover from the donation, but that is not my experience. The day or so after I do not seem to miss it. The 1 - 4 weeks after I do seem to miss the extra red blood cells.
It is week 5 - 6 for me before I feel that I am completely recovered. YMMV, so try it during the off season and see what happens. I give at least 3 times per year now.

[Peter]

I've donated many gallons over the years. I don't think it's selfish to refrain from donating if you're an active racer; it's a practical/common sense decision. But for those of you who are currently racing, please consider becoming a regular donor should you ever stop competing.

It's been my experience that for cyclists who donate, donating will have an impact on intense level riding. It takes a couple weeks for the readily apparent effects to diminish to imperceptible levels. DO NOT try to do high intensity riding for at least a week. I once chased down a moped the day after donating a pint. I was about a half mile from home. Usually, I'll recover from that type of effort in about a minute and not even flinch. In that case, I entered my apartment and lied down on the floor for twenty minutes, positive that the atmosphere had changed to a vacuum!

Heck, now I ride my bike to the blood drive, donate, and ride home. The volunteers sometimes give me grief but I tell them they could take ALL my blood and I'd still kick their butts on a bike! That usually shuts them up...

[vaxn8r]

However, I seem to remember reading that after you donate, your red blood cells that are left will learn to carry more oxygen to make up for the lack.

This would not be true. Each molecule of hemoglobin can carry four molecules of Oxygen. No more than that. The oxygen dissociation curve or, the conditions a hemoglobin molecule will release O2 can be influenced by pH and CO2 concentration (in blood).

OTOH, hypoxemia (usually from anemia) will invoke the release of erthropoeitin (EPO) by the kidney causing the bone marrow to create and release more RBCs.

[Dekonick]

Oh Goodness! What have we started! Next its gonna be acid base buffering...H+ +hco3 -->H2CO3 -->(carbonic anhydrase helping things along) H2O + CO2 -

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

But I gotta agree - Tis true that each Heme group can only carry 4 O's at a time; no matter how hard ya try to teach em....

Now it is true that you can produce more RBC's - ie - living at altitude (Does Lance still sleep in a pressurized tent?) for 6 months will increace your RBC count - increasing your hemacrit - I believe (and I may be talking out my butt again...) that is what they check for when looking to see if someone is blood doping? (too high a crit = unnatural amt of RBC's?)

On another note; those of you who live in the VA area - some 911 systems are doing trials with synthetic oxygen carrying substitutes - wonder if they can or do test for that..... :no:

[gasman]

[gasman]

Giving blood is easy to do. There fewer and fewer qualified donors nationwide and some areas of the country have chronic shortages.
When you give blood the volume lost is replaced in 24-48 mainly by plasma proteins (ie albumin) It can take 8 weeks to replace the red blood cells but in young healthy people (all of you) they can be replaced in as little as 2-3 weeks. Studies on climbers going to high altitude show their red cell mass increases in 2 weeks.
High altitude chambers (low oxygen chambers) like Lance supposedly used are expensive and don't really work well.
The synthetic blood being tested in some areas of the country are easily measured.
The UCI uses a hematocrit of 50% as their cutoff for potential doping, etc.The 50% means that half of the blood volume is red blood cells. This test is easily gotten around by giving IV fluid before the blood draw occurs. Riders with a high hematocrit already (less than 50) can go over 50% after are hard race with dehydration.
Give blood if you can. The life you save may be your own or a fellow bicyclist.
It's safe and easy.....and cool :cool:

[Keith A]

I used to give blood regularly while I was in college and at that time, my cycling was simply transportation -- but this was the only way I got around and so I rode every where. That means I rode my bike to and from giving blood. I had done this many times and did have bad experience.

After giving blood, I went straight to class. I felt fine riding there and at the beginning of class. However, during class I started feeling light headed and began sweating -- I felt like I was going to pass out. I laid my head on my desk and was "out of it" for the rest of the class. I stayed there for a while after class ended until I could get up. When I finally got out of my chair (plastic), there was a small amount of water in the seat as I had sweated that much. I rested for a while and then made my way home and took it easy the remainder of the day. I felt fine the next day and continued my normal bike commuting.

So, I agree with the rest that giving blood is a great thing to do -- but there can indeed be some side affects from the loss of blood.

[vaxn8r]

Keith,

what happened to you had nothing to do with losing a pint of blood but something called a vasovagal response (you were trying to pass out) to a medical procedure. It happens all the time. That's why they tell people to sit there a half hour after donating...eating cookies and juice. It's also why after I draw blood in my office (as small as 5 ml/1 tsp) the exact same reaction happens about 10% of the time...usually to a big strapping teenage male. They get pale, sweaty, nauseated and start to go down. Sometimes they make it to the check out desk or even the parking lot first. Male's really are wusses when it comes to medical stuff! :p

Anyway, don't use that as an excuse to not donate. It could, and does, happen to anybody. I've got a ton of funny stories about that kind of thing.

[Keith A]

vaxn8r,

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Would you mind explaining the vasovagal response a little more?

[gasman]

Keith- What happens is that your heart slows (from the vagal nerve firing) so much that your blood pressure drops. (vaso response part). With low blood pressure your brain doesn't get enough blood, you feel light headed, sick to your stomach and sometimes pass out. I have a buddy I work with that is a great biker, very strong and his resting heart rate is in the 40's. When he gets ANY needle stick he almost passes out, even when sitting down. The best part is he is on the board of a local Blood Bank and he urges people to donate blood. But he does donate himself, just takes it very easy for a while. :banana:

[Too Tall]

I used to be a regular and still have my Red Cross Credit card with 4 gals. given. A few yrs. back I decided to scale it back and only donate during shortages. It absolutely killed my riding for a week. Everyone's different.

PS - Never choose the phlebotimist who smiles...go for the surly ones.

[Keith A]

Thanks gasman for the reply. I did some reading on the Internet and found lots of information under "Vasovagal Reaction" or "Vasovagal Attack". Now that I understand this condition, I realize that this has happened to me on two other occasions in my life.

Once when I received a Gamma Globulin shot -- I always attributed this one to the fact that I was pretty sick at the time. The other time was when they were administering an epidural to my wife prior to the birth of our 3rd child -- this one I always figured that it was from being up all night with my wife and the fact that is was 4:00 or 5:00 am and all the excitement of child birth. These other two episodes were mild in comparison to the one described before. In these cases, I simply felt a little light headed and almost passed out -- but quickly recovered.

What is a bit bewildering is that I have never been afraid of needles or blood. I have always wanted to watch them give me a shot and it has never bothered me at all. As an early teenager, I accidentally shot myself in the finger with a BB gun and the BB logged in my finger. After getting home and washing off the blood, I attempted to get the BB out of my finger with no help from my mom or my friend because they were both freaking out at what I was doing -- I was the only calm one in the house. If either of them would have just grabbed a pair of tweezers, I could have removed the BB -- but instead I ended up at the ER.

Edit: You never know what you might learn on this forum :D

[vaxn8r]

Well, being sick, tired, dehydrated will definitely predispose you to it...that's probably why sometimes you've had no problem. I think you can "get over it" with time and practice and recognizing the early signs.

I've seen a Police officer go down in my clinic. You figure police have seen it all but when his own kid got stitches to his face it was too much. Down he goes.... :)

[Keith A]

vaxn8r -- So what would one do to "get over it"? It does make sense that the times this has happened, there have been extenuating conditions that contributed to these episodes.

BTW, I'm not too concerned about this for me personally because of the hundreds of events that might have caused this reaction; it has only occurred three times. However, as I have come to understand this issue, I now see that my middle child has experienced this on several occasions. These events for her have been triggered simply from the sight of blood (not even her own). So if there are ways to overcome this (or mitigate the effects), I would be interested in helping out my daughter as she seems more susceptible to this problem.

[vaxn8r]

Not so sure, there definitely is a mind over matter but your daughter would have be mature enough to recognize the symptoms and learn relaxation, not perseveration.

I'd just give her reassurance that it happens to lots of people and most of them grow out of it. Women in particular tend to grow out of it better than men because they have so many more opportunities for medical interventions and procedures as they get older.

Ive always liked the saying: "he took it like a ...'woman'". Because they really do take/handle physical pain much better than us men would like to think we do.

[Keith A]

Thanks again for the help. I'm still a bit puzzled regarding my episodes -- as blood and needles don't bother me. I once managed to almost rip off the end of my little finger -- you could see bone, tendons/ligaments and lots of blood. Didn't have one sign of a Vasovagal Reaction. However, there was plenty of screaming because it hurt!