Donating Platelets

skavanagh.bikeradar

Hello,

The NHS National Blood Donor people want my platelets and while I'm not a particularly competitive rider - I do sportives and club TTs for my own amusement - I wanted to find out if anyone knew if donating platelets would affect training/riding. They ask for a monthly donation. It's quite a committment but a worthwhile one and I'm keen to donate. However I don't want it to totally knacker my attempts at say the Marmotte.

So anyone got any views?

LorneC

I donate platelets monthly and to be honest don't notice any real drop-off in performance. Indeed giving platelets is less likely to have an affect than donating a full pint of blood - because the blood taken to extract the platelets is returned to you.

They tell you when you are donating platelets (and whole blood) not to do anything strenuous for about 24 hours afterwards... but then as I normally donate on a Thursday evening, my only ride after donating is to the local station for my train home.

I have found that cycling on the day of your donation can affect the iron levels in your blood, which may prohibit you from being able to donate on that day... (stringent EU rules in place for suitability of blood) so you might want to consider booking your donation on a rest day from training.

skavanagh.bikeradar

Thanks for that, I'm not sure of the biological impact of these things on training - I'm very far from being a medical man! Based on your experience though LorneC it look like I'm worrying about nothing, which is good as I'm eager to donate. I'd probably be looking at not doing anything to hard the day before or the day after then. Thursday or Monday for me then.

SBezza

I generally donate blood on a Friday afternoon, and go out on a club ride on the Saturday morning without any ill effects. Just make sure prior to the donation to drink plenty of fluids (pererably water), and also afterwards.

I even did a sportive about 1 week after giving blood with no issues, so the majority of people should be fine, though on the first donation, perjhaps take the following day as a recovery day, or easy day to make sure you personally are all OK.

richlong28

i'm no doctor, but having finished biology for life about 2 years ago, i thought that platelets aided in healing up cuts, clotting the blood

so by that logic you should be absolutley fine and it should affect you although it may take a tiny bit longer to heal cuts, but nothing major or they would take them.

so just don't fall off and you'll be fine

LorneC

From what I have been told it only takes around 24 hours to regenerate platelets, so you only need to wrap yourself in cotton wool for 24 hours.