A First Timer's Experience Giving Blood

I feel like personally, organ donation is talked about a lot more than blood donation. For me, I heard about organ donation as a child and signed up for it as soon as I was able to, but I don’t think I’d heard of anyone giving blood until my housemate did at university.

As someone who was on board with organ donation, I then thought that I should be someone who gives blood as well. After all, you can donate your blood a lot more than you can donate your organs! I understand people may be afraid of needles or prone to fainting, or anyone who may have any other reason that would make them unsuitable to donate blood, but I do feel like there’s a lot of us out there who could donate our blood more often.

So why donate?

Did you know that one blood donation can help to save or change up to three lives? How awesome is that? If you make regular donations, women every 16 weeks and men every 12 weeks, you really could be making a marked difference to so many lives. And men make better blood donors than women, so men, we need you!

As long as you are within the height, weight and age parameters you could be suitable to give blood. The NHS are always after rare blood types as well, so if you’re Black (the Ro blood type is the most common for Black patients) or O negative (this blood type can be given to all patients) they are always looking for donations from you. If you don’t know your blood type yet, why not give blood to find out – you’ll also find out if giving blood suits you or not.

What happens if I feel faint or ill after donating?

What do I mean by whether giving blood can ‘suit’ you? Well, giving blood can vary from person to person in how their body reacts. So it’s not to say that if you’re particularly tall or particularly short that it will affect you in a certain way.

For me personally, when I donated last week, I felt completely fine until I got to the snack table. I then bent over to get my cake out of my bag and that may have been what made me feel faint – or I may have felt faint either way, I’m not sure. What happened though, is that I told the nurse on the refreshment table that I felt faint, she immediately came over to me and walked me to a chair set aside for this exact purpose, sat me down and then laid me back so my legs were above my head and told me to wiggle my feet and clench my buttocks.

I was told that fainting isn’t bad, it’s just when you fall and hit your head that it’s bad. This must be one of the reasons they mark your sheet as a first-timer and they’re clearly always on the lookout for anyone who might faint. The nurse stayed with me until I felt well again, and he was so attentive. I was told that donation affects everyone differently and all my questions were answered. I soon felt well enough to leave safely and to my surprise, it hasn’t put me off wanting to donate again because I know I’ll be well looked after if I were to feel faint again.

If you’re anxious about giving blood

I have anxiety, so here are a few things that happened that helped me to feel comfortable with when deciding to and going to give blood:

• It’s marked on your sheet that you’re a first time donor, this means all the nurses who come into contact with you are aware of this and will keep a closer eye on you
• You’re given aftercare cards with information on what to do if you start to feel unwell after your donation
• For me I was also given a leaflet about fainting because I had felt faint
• There is a lot of documentation and information about donation and your blood
• There’s an animated video that shows you what will happen from the moment you arrive, right through to donation and refreshments
• You complete a health questionnaire and checks to ensure you’re suitable to donate and your blood is safe (if you’re worried your blood might make people ill, possibly irrational to some people but not to an anxious mind)

How do I register as a blood donor?

I downloaded the NHS Give Blood app on my smartphone, it’s free and you just register on there and complete some health questions. You can then search on the app for nearby appointments and register for one at the click of a button. You can also register to be a blood donor online.

In the post I received a healthcare questionnaire which I needed to complete prior to my donation and bring along with me. It was very quick and easy.

I really hate needles, can I do anything else to help?

If you’ve either tried to donate and it’s made you feel too unwell to suit you, or you can’t even get in the donation chair because you hate needles, you can do a few other things to help:

• Drive people to and from donation appointments
• It’s not recommended to drive yourself back, particularly if it’s your first time donating, so your help in taking people to and from appointments can be invaluable.
• Spread the word
• Tell your friends and family about blood donation, especially the men, or share on social media. The more blood donors we get the more people we save!

Let’s do it all again!

I can honestly say that, despite feeling faint which you could say would be the second most adverse effect you can have (other than actually fainting), I’ll be donating blood again as soon as I can. I may only have felt a bit off this time because it was my first time, and I’ll definitely eat and drink more in the days leading up to my next donation so I go into it in the best stead I can. But I know if I do feel unwell or faint again, I’ll be looked after extremely well. And half an hour or so of feeling faint is worth it to save or improve up to three peoples’ lives, don’t you think?