http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-me-bloodside2sep02,1, 4165758.story?track=rss
This is article about how the cost of blood has risen over the last few years. Imagine my surprise when I saw these paragraphs mentioned in passing.
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Regional blood banks sometimes add tests or procedures not yet required by the FDA. Because of Southern California's large immigrant population, the Red Cross, for example, tests for the parasite that causes Chagas disease, which is widespread in Latin America.
The test adds to per unit. The local Red Cross also performs a process called leukocyte reduction to filter out white blood cells that can cause fever or other host immune reactions.
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Anybody else seeing what I'm seeing?
Pip
P.S. If the link does not work - delete any spaces and try again!
Interesting article. This brings me to a question I'm sure you and/or others can answer. I used to donate blood but since I've started the meds below, I've assumed that I'm no longer able to donate and haven't even gone to a blood drive, only to be told they can't use my blood. Am I being too cautious? Do any of you still donate? I'll take a chance on wasting my time if it seems there's some chance of still being able to donate.There was a thread about this a bit back; maybe 2 months ago??? Anyway, we kind of came to the conclusion that some places will still let us donate. It came to light that some Red Cross donation centers won't allow people with Auto-immune diseases to donate.
This was eye opening because, IMHO, they basically said "host immune reactions" and "leukocyte reduction". APer's believe that the microbes are hiding in the leukocytes. To an APer, this screams "infection". (I posted the parasite paragraph because of Lev's recent posts). It also screams "they know!"
Because of my belief in the infection connection - I cannot in good conscience donate. To think I might accidentally give this misery to somebody else is horrifying to me. Unless I can get a 'cure' and take it 5 years - like cancer survivors for purposes of donation - I just can't do it.
Pip
Pip - I posted over in Odds and Ends a couple of weeks ago some info from the Mad Hatter re The River of Blood.
I tried to donate blood about 7 years ago, and they wouldn't take it because I was on Synthroid (go read if that's one of the drugs they reject blood over). I stood up to leave, and the Bloodmobile Blood Bank guy who just told me no, grabbed my wrist and took a sample in a quick jab. I am still poed. I cannot donate now because of the MTX, and I got so poed, a year ago I cancelled all my directives to Will my body to a medical teachine school, organ donation, everything. Up yours. :) Cathy
Pip, you bring up a very good point. It never occured to me that I might pass this on somehow. I was only thinking in terms of the meds causing a problem. You're absolutely right. Since there's so much they still don't know about these RA type diseases, it would be wrong of me to offer my blood to anyone. IMHO that also goes for anyone with any kind of disease. It's a no-brainer. Thanks for the wake-up call.Hi Pip,
This article reminds me of the seven blood tranfusions I had when doing stem cell. The blood scaried me because of thinking of who's blood I might be getting. And of course you have to sign waiver about slight chance of getting something. One transfusion did make me break out in hives and they stopped it immediately and nurse mentioned it might be because blood was typed wrong as in blood type. Nice :( Then I started thinking of every druggie in town donating for cookies or something. LOL
One interesting thing is after stem cell I have allergy to eggs which I did not have before procedure. I still crave eggs but when I try and eat them I am pretty much sick to stomach all day.
What is even scarier is artifical blood they used in ER's before media informed the public. They did this without the permission of patient.
Now they must inform them and get consent.
Medicine is good and BAD.
LuAnn
Side note: Chemo pretty much wiped out chance of having any bugs or infection. I still think hydrogen peroxide IV's would be better alternative than chemo, it is nothing less than being in middle of nuclear blast. It is amazing to me the body can continue to exist and repair itself after such a procedure.
Hi LuAnn!
Long time no hear from! How you been?
Very interesting on the egg allergy!
OK, I did NOT know about artificial blood. What do they make it out of? Wait, I probably don't want to know! Yuck!
Can you explain about the Hydrogen IV's? I've heard of them on the AP sites...but I don't know what they are or much about them. Are you saying you think they are as effective as chemo? Why?
Hugs,
Pip
Hey Pip,
HP IV's were used in world war II, I think, where soldiers were dying from pnuemonia (SP) and virus's. They found it to be cheap and effective against virus's. There is a book written about it call "Into the Light" by Dr Douglas something. (Sorry who's name ecapes me)
He wrote many books on the alternative route. My problem was little tiny no find veins and administer must be done by experienced professional. Some people even put ten drops in their water and drank it but he really did not endorse that method. Even CSI had one show about alternative and hi-lighted a girl who dies from HP IV's because Dr. gave her 35% instead of 3% and it showed it grapically blowing up the red blood cells at the wrong dosage.
I am doing fine. Very tired 52 yr old Mom of active 5 yr old who just entered K school and gets more homework than I had in High School.
Are you smarter than a first grader? Hehe, I know I am NOT :)
Blessings to All
LuAnn
PS: I think artifical blood was made from rubber product. I don't know about you but that is scary.
LuAnn
Scary indeed!
I'm going to try and find that book. Did you see the threads on HP - I think "fizzy" is in all the titles. LOL
Pip
P.S. I'm practically beating my baby's 1st grade teacher into giving her more homework. She keeps calling it 'baby work' but doesn't want the teacher to be hurt. :-)
Dr. William Douglas - I think he is located in Orlando. My father has been wanting me to see him for years, sent me his Into the Light book and I barely looked at it. I am seriously considering the HP IV route.I think it just depends on someone's moral code. What if I 'save' them only for them to get this later. I could not live with myself knowing (or even suspecting) I did that. My daughter possibly needed surgery a year ago and I felt she'd be safer with the general donation than with me.
As we can see with this article - only 3 to 5% of the population donates. We need to motivate the 5 out of 6 Americans that DON'T have an AI disease to donate.
Maybe some sort of tax savings.
Pip
They won't take anyone on MTX. One of the best friends I ever had was dx'd in one of the first few years of AIDS cases. At the time he was dx'd, he was like a world champion Red Cross blood donator. He always said that was one of the worst things about his disease - he could no longer donate, and he had no idea who he had infected by donating when they weren't screening yet and he didn't know he was sick.I was - just never thought about it in this context before. And it's not like we haven't had posts on this subject before. It was the infectious diseases doc.
Pip
ARGH!