Is donating platelets harmful to your health?

In modern life, people highly respect blood donation to save lives and the wounded. Moreover, this method of saving lives is very low-cost and will not increase the financial burden on patients. Blood donation is not a simple blood transfusion. Many serious diseases require the extraction of platelets and other substances from the blood. Everyone knows that platelets are very important substances and are indispensable to the human body. Let’s take a look at whether donating platelets is harmful to the body?

First of all, it should be said that donating a normal amount of platelets is absolutely harmless to humans!

The most significant advantage of donating blood is that it saves blood and helps donors recover faster. Successful blood transfusions have been used to save lives for more than a hundred years, and blood donated by donors is still the only source of blood for clinical use. Blood donation includes whole blood and component blood (the component blood here is almost all platelets, with occasional white blood cells, about one thousandth). In the past, platelets could not be separated directly and had to be separated manually using whole blood. A therapeutic dose of platelets required at least 2,000 ml of whole blood. In the industry, one platelet is called 10U, which means 10 units of 200 ml of blood. In recent years, platelets can be donated directly by blood donors. A portion of the blood is drawn out to separate the platelets, and the other components are then returned. After three to five cycles, a therapeutic dose is collected in nearly an hour. Each person can donate up to two therapeutic doses of platelets each time. Donors recover within a few days and are able to donate again after 14 days. The interval between two whole blood donations is 6 months.

Benefits of donating platelets:

1. Donating blood components helps reduce the blood viscosity and cholesterol in the donor's body, thereby speeding up blood flow and increasing cerebral blood flow. People will feel relaxed, clear-headed, and quick to react, which has a positive effect on preventing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and arteriosclerosis.

2. It can promote human metabolism. Donating a moderate amount of platelets can stimulate the body's nervous regulation system, making the body's metabolism more vigorous and the body healthier.

3. Understand your physical health condition. When blood donors donate platelets, blood stations will conduct strict physical examinations and tests. Therefore, every time a blood donor donates platelets, it is equivalent to a small free health check.

4. Psychological satisfaction. The platelets you donate must be used to help patients with low platelet counts, or even those who are in critical condition. Maybe your platelets really saved someone's life.