Why? How often? How do you feel after?

  • Zagorath
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    911 hours ago

    I used to. “Why not?” would be the reason. I never felt anything at all afterwards. I would schedule my donations so I don’t have any hard exercise later the same day, but otherwise it wouldn’t impact my life at all.

    I stopped after going to my GP for an entirely unrelated reason and being told that I had severely low iron levels. I don’t believe it was related to donating, but it does mean they couldn’t use my blood.

    • @jimi_henrik
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      410 hours ago

      You lose quite a lot of iron when donating blood:

      Each time you donate blood, you lose between 220-250 mg of iron. It may take up to 24-30 weeks for your body to replace the iron lost through a blood donation. That time may vary, depending on what your iron level was before donating and if you take iron supplements or multivitamins with iron.

      AFAIK many people are fine (no symptoms) with having low iron levels.