People with certain illnesses like sickle cell disease or cancer need multiple transfusions through the year. How do we manage iron deficiency after blood donation? experience a decline in testosterone. Iron Info For Frequent Donors | Red Cross Blood Services [Clinical Biochemistry 2015] Regular blood donors have ferritin levels about half that of non-donors. The challenge with that is for every pint you donate you can drop about 30 points of your ferritin levels and at a certain point, you can become anemic. I donate blood every 3 months the last donation was 2 weeks before my blood tests on 7/12/09. Too much iron can be damaging to blood vessels, and a regular decrease of iron-rich blood and subsequent replenishment due to blood donation can lead to a more beneficial lower iron level. Double red cell donation is different in the fact that only the red blood cells are collected during the donation process. In the case of the acutely bleeding patient with the spleen injury, the initial drop was 1.5 gm/dl. Answer (1 of 2): That's a loaded question. High Ferritin: How to Reduce It - Step To Health Female sex, frequency of donation (number of donations in the year prior to ferritin testing), and for . Donors ages 16-18 are eligible for a whole blood donation once every six months (180 days) or a double red blood cell donation (DRBC) once every 12 months (365 days). Whole Blood Donation Affects the Interpretation of Hemoglobin A1c - PLOS Can donating blood help with iron overload? - Stefan Filippo Health It can be transfused in its original form, or used to help multiple people when separated into its specific components of red cells, plasma and platelets. High saturation can have this buffering effect for the first 1-3 donations. What can cause ferritin levels to drop very quickly? In healthy men, a single 500-mL whole blood donation results in a substantial loss of heme iron (≈200 to 250 mg) and 1 whole blood donation per year decreases serum ferritin levels by 44%. Blood donation was associated with a decrease in serum ferritin. Meanwhile, the RDA is 8 mg (0.8 mg absorbed) so you see the problem: intake is 2.5 times the minimum necessary, which can ultimately lead to high body iron stores (high ferritin). Normal range of ferritin for men is around 12 to 300 ng/mL (nanograms per milliliter), while for women, it is around 12 to150 ng/mL. Healthy donors produce new red blood cells to replace donated cells. Ferritin findings: investigating iron and impacts on donors