[Taltarzac725]

Low Iron & Blood Donations | OneBlood

Here are some tips about your iron levels and donating blood, platelets, red blood cells, etc.

I am now up to around 28 gallons of mainly platelets donated at One Blood and other places. But had made additional donations other than to One Blood when I had registered with them when they were still Florida Blood Centers in 2007. My additional donations were to Life South and Florida Blood Services.

Have had low iron problems a few times.

[leftyf]

I never have low iron, I have to really watch my diet or the iron gets too high then I can't donate.

[luperona9]

Originally Posted by leftyf

I never have low iron, I have to really watch my diet or the iron gets too high then I can't donate.

I thought it was actually recommended for high iron persons to donate in order to lower their count.

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by luperona9

I thought it was actually recommended for high iron persons to donate in order to lower their count.

Donating whole blood lowers iron. Doing the few hours on the platelet machine raises your iron level or can. My brother has a hereditary iron overload condition and donates blood to knock it down as do a number of my relatives. He cannot do platelets because of this disease. I do not have it. Hereditary Hemochromatosis - American Family Physician

[leftyf]

I have to watch closely the foods I eat for the iron content. For instance, I ate Cheerios for breakfast for many years. After getting turned down for my platelet donation again, I went home and checked the iron content of all of the foods I eat. I found that one cup of cheerios has 45% of my daily iron needs. I stopped eating and switched to organic shredded wheat and organic raisin bran. I found on the net that nearly all adults do not need iron in their diets. There is no iron in the Senior Vitamin products, so why are they in our foods. Oh, I checked every cereal at Walmart and ALL of them have iron over 40% of your daily needs.

One of the best perks of donating platelets is that you get a blood test every time you donate. Really nice. I also monitor my cholesterol too.

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by leftyf

I have to watch closely the foods I eat for the iron content. For instance, I ate Cheerios for breakfast for many years. After getting turned down for my platelet donation again, I went home and checked the iron content of all of the foods I eat. I found that one cup of cheerios has 45% of my daily iron needs. I stopped eating and switched to organic shredded wheat and organic raisin bran. I found on the net that nearly all adults do not need iron in their diets. There is no iron in the Senior Vitamin products, so why are they in our foods. Oh, I checked every cereal at Walmart and ALL of them have iron over 40% of your daily needs.

One of the best perks of donating platelets is that you get a blood test every time you donate. Really nice. I also monitor my cholesterol too.

Those tests do help. The scale they had for a long time seemed to subtract about 5 to 7 lbs.

Pizza seems to have a lot of iron at least the frozen kind. Have to try to avoid it within a few days of when I donate platelets.

[JohnN]

There's a max level on iron (19.6 or so) where you can donate. Higher than that, they'll turn you down. if you have higher iron than that, your doc will need to write an Rx to have you drained down in a lab - where they dispose of it. I guess there are health issues where iron is too high.

[leftyf]

The max for platelet donation is 17, I was told that above that is dangerous to the recipient. Mine is always above 15 even with closely monitoring my diet. I don't know about whole blood donations, I haven't given whole blood since I started on the platelet program.

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by leftyf

The max for platelet donation is 17, I was told that above that is dangerous to the recipient. Mine is always above 15 even with closely monitoring my diet. I don't know about whole blood donations, I haven't given whole blood since I started on the platelet program.

Mine was as high as 16.9 and lower than 12.5 at one point which I believe was the low level for iron at one time. It could be 13.0 now but am not sure?

Mine varies a lot.

Blood donation iron limits are the same as platelets at One Blood. I do give whole blood donations when my iron level starts staying at near 17.0. It bumps it down.