Not long after my last donation, I broke my damned hand. still hasn't healed right so I keep putting my next one off, which is a real shame since I wanted to do them quite frequently
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Blood Donors
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I have donated a few times. But the only place in my state that does it is Vitalent and they act like leeches who have my personal phone number.
I get calls at least every other day from them.
I never said it was ok to advertise to my number. I've asked to be removed from their calling lists. Ive blocked their numbers. No matter what I do they spoof a new number and keep calling me.
They've called me to try to schedule appointments less than a week after I last donated which isn't the min waiting period between donations.
They do these insane raffles and prize lotterys for donating, which shows they could just be paying people for their donations but don't.
I like donating blood, but I hate the idea of spending an afternoon giving blood to a for profit corporation that then sells my blood to hospitals, and then spam calls me like a scam telemarketer.
I'm really sorry this is happening!
It seems some people with the same issue managed to at least get a message saying they'll get off the list after filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau online here. You'll probably want to search for the one in your state and city. If you already did this and it still didn't work, sorry in advance.
I'm lazy and don't like needles. I did it when the red cross come to the office but that hasn't happened since COVID.
My first experience with it was having a huge pain in my arm every time I move it from the vertical position, and this lasted for like 2-3 days, plus the pain I felt in my finger that was tested for blood eligibility every time it touched something, which lasted for a couple of days as well.
Wasn’t a fun experience, not sure if I’ll do it again :-/
"huge" compared to the act. Wasn’t that huge, but muscle aches basically
But in my finger it definitely felt like someone was planting something in my finger every time I put a bit of pressure on it. Annoying to temporarily lose the ability to use a finger because I donated :(
So there definitely aren’t only 10 reasons you might not donate
I don't give blood because we have the technology to mass-produce completely antigen-free red blood cells artificially, but we don't because there are so many donors.
There is a blood shortage in almost every single nation on earth. What are you talking about?
That’s not true. Cultured blood cells can’t be produced at anywhere near the volume or cost of donated blood. Synthetics are still a long way off.
No one is working on it because we have so much volume. But it is very technologically feasible.
Feasible, yes, but we don’t currently have the technology so donors are necessary.
There are people working on synthetic and cultured replacements. It’s not true that “we have so much volume” that no one is working on it. There’s massive shortage of donors.
No one is working on it because we have so much volume.
Flip the thing around. Why should we introduce some dependency on a technology when the "simple" system is already very effective?