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DumbbellDiva92 t1_je00yyx wrote

Reply to comment by musicmad-123 in TIL about Lillan Bloodworth, who donated blood every 56 days for nearly 50 years. By the time she stopped at age 85, she had donated 23 gallons. (The average person's body contains about 1.5 gallons.) by WouldbeWanderer

This lady might also just be an outlier. I’m not convinced having the same limit for men and women like we do in the US is actually a good idea. I know I got anemic when I tried to donate as often as allowed. At minimum, periodic ferritin testing should be implemented if they are going to keep the recovery time that low.

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musicmad-123 t1_je03hsi wrote

In the UK they test our iron right before the donation every single time. I think they did trial having women be able to donate more frequently but they concluded it was safer to keep it as is.

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DumbbellDiva92 t1_je03wlc wrote

They test our hemoglobin before as well but that’s different from ferritin. Think you need more blood for that (can’t just use a finger prick), but you can sometimes have iron deficiency that doesn’t show up by that (but would show up as low ferritin).

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