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I want to raise awareness that you don't have donate an organ to save lives. Blood cancer patients all over the world are frantically looking for bone marrow and blood cell donors. The chances for a match are very low, but if they find one the chances of success are high. So you can understand the desperation.

The thing is, an actual bone marrow extraction is only required in 10% of all cases, most of the time you only have to donate blood cells. It's painless and pretty much non-intrusive.

Check out https://www.dkms.de/en or https://bethematch.org/ for more information about the subject. Costs for the match test are unfortunately not covered by health insurance here in Germany, but it's only 30€ or something in that order.

If you ever wanted to save a life, get tested.

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I'm literally getting a bone marrow transplant today to treat leukemia. I'm in the US and my donor is somewhere in Europe. I can't thank these donation networks enough -- they are saving my life.

Good luck! I hope everything goes well

Can confirm: this is an incredibly low-barrier-to-entry thing.

I'm a U.S. citizen, so I signed up with Be The Match. Four cheek swabs that they send you in the mail. Swab your cheeks, package them up, send them back.

I got notified that I was a preliminary match just five months after signing up. Sadly, I wasn't a full match (hopefully someone else was!) after going through the blood draw.

All in all, it cost me nothing monetarily and maybe 3 hours total between questionnaires and the blood draw when I got matched.

I only worry about the drugs they have you take prior to increase your blood cell production

Why? Others are donating a whole kidney or parts of their liver etc, which is much riskier. Compared to that, taking some drugs for short time to increase blood cell production sounds tame.

I'd rather worry about the bone marrow donation. Once you sign up, you potentially have to give bone marrow or have to live with the fact that you could've saved someones life, but didn't.

I live in the US now but was born in the UK and lived there until I was almost 30. Each time I tried to give blood here in CA, I was told I was ineligible because of the possibility I was a carrier for "Mad Cow Disease".

Anyone know if that's still the case or if there is a way to get tests and cleared for donations?

I believe you can't ever get cleared. The only way to confirm mad cow is to dissect the brain, so obviously it can't be tested for in a living person. As a result, anyone with over a certain amount of risk for mad cow can never be allowed to donate.

If I had leukemia, I'd love some possibly-mad-cow-tainted blood/marrow from an otherwise healthy donor.

:-) I am the UK kidney transplant list last year I turned down a potential kidney as there was a risk that the donor was potentialy HIV+

The surgeons second line was "don't worry we have really good drugs for HIV these days"

In the end we agreed that given my age and I then had fairly good function left that letting some on else have it was for the best

You can still donate (blood, at least) for research purposes, if you can find someone who's collecting it. Bonus, you get $50–100 instead of a cookie!

It's still a thing, see: http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requ...

I lived in Germany for three years in the '00s so I'm ineligible.

I lived in Germany in the mid 80s (military brat) and I also have always been told that I can't donate because of that.

Yup, the test is extremely easy too. Just requires a simple swab on the inside of the cheek. I know there are a decent amount of donor drives that you can find through the website that will add you to their registry

Shameless Plug: The football coach at the college I went to actually has a charity dedicated to getting more people to take the test and I think is associated with the Be The Match organization. One of his players (who now happens to be an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-matt-s... ) ended up being a match and ended up missing a good chunk of the baseball season even though he was expected to be drafted by a Major league team that year. Pretty cool story

My dad's life was saved 10 years ago via a bone marrow transplant from an English woman. He was being treated for Leukemia.

Thanks for promoting this cause!

Jumping in here - I donated peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) a couple years ago and the process was easy and incredibly rewarding. I encourage all to participate, especially if you have non-European or mixed ancestry!

> especially if you have non-European or mixed ancestry!

I'm curious, how does it matter?

https://bethematch.org/transplant-basics/matching-patients-w...

Recipients are more likely to match with donors of similar ethnic backgrounds. Today, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian patients are far less likely to find a match in the registry than White patients.

If you are affiliated with the US DoD ("A member of the U.S. military, Reserve, Coast Guard, National Guard; military dependent; or DoD civilian employee") you need to sign up with https://www.salutetolife.org instead.

Registering as a bone marrow donor is particularly valuable if you're mixed race. Bone marrow transplants require a very high degree of genetic similarity, so it can be very difficult to find matches for mixed race recipients.

http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1993074,0...

Do you know if they ever reject donors due to health issues? I've been rejected for blood donation before because some blood centers consider fibromyalgia an auto-immune condition. I couldn't find anything about it in the donor faq though.

They also won't accept you as a donor if you have any kind of auto-immune disease (because we still don't know how it works and if it can be transfered via blood cells or marrow), and generally, your body has to be in good shape.

I thought about donating but my doctor discouraged me and advised me to take it serious, e.g. don't lie while filling out the donation forms. Even though it probably would turn out fine someone could die because of you which is exactly the opposite of what you've signed up for.

They have a medical requirements page: https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-bone-marrow/...

It looks like fibromyalgia does make you ineligible.

So you can donate bone marrow, even if you can't donate blood because of possibly being a mad cow carrier?

The problem with blood donation, for me, is the time between donation.

I donate plasma twice a week, i have for years now. 880mL of plasma every donation... Whereas blood you have to wait 8 weeks between...

Not saying blood is less important, just important to understand there are options... all of it is important, and i think everyone should be donating something in their body like blood/plasma that is renewable and costs your body next to nothing to give...

My life was saved by bethematch donor. Who ever you are anonymous donor, I thank thee.

My entire family and all our friends signed up once they realized how easy it was. Do it.

Thank you for the reminder. I signed up.

The day after the House passed the awful AHCA, it's nice to feel I am doing something to potentially improve the health of another.

Giving blood is the easiest way in the world to invest in the karma bank account. One of the easiest ways out there to save lives.

I would love to donate blood, but it seems I'm too sensitive to blood. Not sure why. But there have been cases where I have passed out after giving blood tests or cutting myself. Would love to hear ideas how to overcome this.

I donated a lot when my father died. Just make sure you're not looking at the bag filling with your blood. We're programmed to think that our life is dripping out through that cord but be positive and aware that this helps someone and also regenerates your blood so it has its benefits.

Don't look and prepare mentally that you're not going to die there. I know it sounds absurd but the "fight or flight" situation kicks in and, like with panic attacks, the fear of actually dying probably leads you to pass out probably.

I'm not sure that's really a fight or flight response since passing out would leave one extremely vulnerable to harm from predators, the environment.

You never had a panic attack. When the brain overloads in such situation will take the most extreme action it can, shut you down, put you to sleep so you can't feel anything probably. It won't happen to everyone but it does to many. I've had some panic attacks 5 years ago that got me close to that point. I didn't pass out but I was right there, in all instances I ended up in the ER though.

I have a friend who's girlfriend was driving one day and the car slipped off the road going towards an electrical pillar (it didn't hit it though because my friend managed to grab the wheel). Near the collision point with that pillar his girlfriend passed out, in an instant. We laughed at that situation for years. They ended up in someone's yard, killing a poor dog in his little house.

When giving blood, you could be experiencing vasovagal syncope -- fainting due to the drop in blood pressure and / or blood sugar. That's why they always hand out high-sugar juices -- hydration and sugar help reduce those effects. There are also sometimes symptoms before passing out. Here's a good article about it:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/166968-why-do-people-pass-...

However, that doesn't answer cuts. Does it happen on any sight of blood or only your blood?

I know a bit about this due to having researched after I gave blood the first time. Ends up the person was not very experienced and ended up drawing from muscle instead of a blood vessel. I was in for probably about 20 minutes with only half a bag before they gave up and sent me on my way. Walking from the parking lot to the office, I got lightheaded, nauseated, cold sweats, some gastrointestinal effects... But did not pass out. In my case, I think it's blood sugar related, as I had a similar reaction once while fasting.

Dude (m/f), don't drive after donating blood. Go with a friend or take public transportation. You're a risk to others, too, especially if you don't donate regularly and don't know how you'll react.

Yes, you are absolutely right. In this case, there was a mobile collection unit in the office parking lot. This is very common where I live. Sorry for the confusion.

They park donation vans outside of office buildings, it's probable that's how he donated.

I also had this problem and finally asked a therapist about it last year, because I was pregnant and having to do a million blood draws. He surprised me when he said the last thing you want to do is try to relax (which is of course what the nurse always tells you to do).

Instead, start tensing muscles in your body - legs, hands, wherever. This keeps the blood pumping to your brain so you don't faint.

It absolutely works. I can even watch them draw the blood now and feel fine.

That's called Vasovagal Syncope [0]. It doesn't necessarily happen because you see your own blood in a bag, but rather because of the physical implications of having blood removed from your body. Drawing slower or smaller volumes can potentially help mitigating this problem. I think it can also be seen as an indicator for other medical problems regarding your circulatory system, so it might be worth investigating further.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasovagal_syncope

Try go with a talkative friend who can take your mind off it and definitely let the one sticking you know.

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