Someone please talk me through giving blood

[LemonBreeland]

As the title says, I have signed up to be a blood donor. I've never done it before as was often anaemic when I was younger. But now I've signed up I'm a bit nervous.

Can someone please tell me how it all works.

The bags are one bag, one donor. I thought when I was younger that there would be a big tank with a pump, but I also thought a medallion and undoing my shirt to the navel would attract women .

Heh heh. Thanks for answering my question.

So, I'm not long back from donating. It was all fine, I didn't feel nervous once I was there. It was stretcher type things that we lay on, I don't know if that's because it's a travelling donation centre.

The blood came out quickly and I felt great, until I tried to sit up. I got very dizzy and had to lie straight back down. Apparently it's very common first time. I ended up being okay on attempt 3 to sit up. And I had a lovely tunnocks caramel wafer on the way out.

The dizziness hasn't put me off. I will be more careful next time l, as I am prone to low blood pressure anyway.

And my biggest concern was having high enough iron levels as I've been anaemic in the past. I needed 125 and my level was 126. So just enough.

Thank you to everyone who commented on the thread, and I hope perhaps it convinces others to sign up.

Well done!

Well done. I'm very jealous of your tunnocks!

I thought they'd done away with the stretcher things, not seen one for years. Much prefer the to the weird swinging bucket chairs!

Well done Lemon. They're a mobile unit in my area and they move round the various locations - we have the tilting chairs.

On iron levels, try to eat something iron rich beforehand. Tuna is a really good source of iron I found out recently, for example.

I thought we were doing well with orange Clubs, but a Tunnocks wafer!

Loving the Tunnocks jealousy