Donating Blood More Often

[anp]

My iron has slowly been dropping since going away from a high meat diet. Recently gave blood to try to get Ferritin down. I was 240+.

The red cross only lets you donate every 59 days. From my reading the body regenerates the lost blood within 2 weeks. It would be nice to donate every 30 days. Are there any tricks? How does one go about blood letting instead?

 

[dfspcc20]

My iron has slowly been dropping since going away from a high meat diet. Recently gave blood to try to get Ferritin down. I was 240+.

The red cross only lets you donate every 59 days. From my reading the body regenerates the lost blood within 2 weeks. It would be nice to donate every 30 days. Are there any tricks? How does one go about blood letting instead?

Could you donate with both Red Cross and Carter Bloodcare (assuming you're in the US)? I'm not sure if they share info.
Assuming both only let you donate with them every 59 days, you could alternate and do it every 30 days or so.

 

[anp]

Yeah, i'm in the US. No charter bloodcare near me. I'm curious if anyone here does this and if there is any basic data sharing between groups.

 

[dbh25]

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/new...od-donation-shortens-hemoglobin-recovery-time
"Without iron supplementation, two thirds of the donors did not recover the iron lost from donating blood after 24 weeks."
There's a low level you don't want to fall through either

 

[Lurker]

You can get a script from the doctor for phlebotomy treatments if you can find an open minded one that will work with you.

 

[peatmás]

My iron has slowly been dropping since going away from a high meat diet. Recently gave blood to try to get Ferritin down. I was 240+.
The red cross only lets you donate every 59 days. ...It would be nice to donate every 30 days. Are there any tricks? How does one go about blood letting instead?

In most parts of the U.S., the Red Cross is the only game in town for donating. It is possible if you are near a medical academic center that you could find some research that needs occasional blood samples drawn. It is not easy without special access to get extra phlebotomy done. And it is time consuming traveling around to find alternate donation centers.

In a similar situation, I found that limiting iron food intake will work gradually, not as fast as frequent blood donation, but within months. The tricky part is getting adequate protein with low muscle meat intake. In my case, I enjoyed dairy sources of protein and large portions of gelatin. Non-meat high quality protein choice may vary depending on ease of digestion.

I largely avoided prepared ("fortified", maybe "ferrisized") foods and cast iron cookware especially when iron stores were high.

 

[encerent]

My iron has slowly been dropping since going away from a high meat diet. Recently gave blood to try to get Ferritin down. I was 240+.

The red cross only lets you donate every 59 days. From my reading the body regenerates the lost blood within 2 weeks. It would be nice to donate every 30 days. Are there any tricks? How does one go about blood letting instead?

Why don't you do as the college kids do and get a fake id?