Blood donation, although a noble act, has many myths and concerns associated with it.
Many people have the misconception that are disadvantages of donating blood and it is very important to clear and resolve the doubts so that people start donating more and more blood and the supply of blood meets the demand.
One of the concerns while donating blood is the bruising of the arm while the needle is being inserted.
There has been a study which says that less than 1% donors encounter this problem.
This may also happen due to the lack of proper, untrained medical trainees and interns.
There are even less complications in the blood donation, which are known to occur.
These uncommon complications may include nerve irritation, arterial puncture, tendon injury, allergic reactions, delayed bleeding, nerve injury and thrombophlebitis.
Sometimes, some donors have allergy and react to sodium citrate which is used in the apheresis type of blood collection procedure, which is used to keep the blood from clotting.
In this kind of donation, only the plasma or platelets can be donated and other things can be returned.
Since the anticoagulant is returned with the blood components, back to the donor, it can bind the calcium in the blood and can result into hypocalcemia.
These reactions can have severe results like seizure, hypertension, tingling in lips and convulsions.
Calcium supplements are given in these cases to prevent the side effects.
The apheresis procedure includes the returning of the red blood cells to the donor.
There is a chance of transfusion reaction taking place if the apheresis is done manually and the donor receives blood from a different person.
It is very rare to have a manual apheresis in the developed world because of the risk and automated procedures are considered to be safe like the whole blood donation, which does not include returning of any of the blood components, back to the donor.
The final risk to the blood donors is the usage of such equipments that are not properly sterilized.
As the blood comes in direct contact with the equipment, the blood can be contaminated if the equipment is re-used.
In the 1990s, re-used equipments were a big problem in China and it has been known from the top medical news that around 250000 blood plasma donors have been exposed to HIV due to the shared equipment.
Blood donation has very rare complications and a common individual would face only a slight weakness or headache on average after donating blood.
One should resolve all the doubts and myths and come forward for the noble act of blood donation.