A course of leeches?
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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Plasma donation works much better.
Whole blood donation typically takes 500ml of blood every 12 weeks. Plasma donation takes 1000ml of plasma every 2 weeks (in the UK) or twice a week (in the US).
I was told the future would be all flying cars and food in pills.
But instead it’s industrial pollution and bloodletting.
The bioaccumilation of PFAS in mortal blood is concerning for me and my colleagues.
It would be very sad to live for 600 years, only to be killed off by fire suppressant.
Huh interesting, as someone who has to bloodlet regularly... nice to know my PFAS levels should be a bit lower.
Additionally - not good people are having to do it because of this. Just further scares me of the quality of our drinking water by all our crazy water providers.
I'm curious - why would someone need to bloodlet? I'm ignorant AF on this but I thought this was like, dark ages medicine?
It’s used therapeutically for hemochromatosis which is too much iron in your blood.
Yeah exactly this. Have the one condition were leeches would have actually been useful :D
Do you donate blood to do this or..?
I imagine they can’t because their blood is too ironic
How ironic.
But really tho, people with high iron are good for blood donation because a lot of people are low and they more readily pass the screening tests for donation.
So yeah you can’t when your iron levels are too high but when it goes down to normal levels you can become a regular donator, which then helps keep the levels down.
With my super iron blood I can then donate blood every 8 weeks instead of the normal 12. If I am remembering that right.
Nice, do you do that just to help keep it in check, or do you have other methods?
Unfortuantely nothing I can do to keep it from rising. So giving blood is the only way to reduce the levels atm. Only thing you can do is reduce the amount it increases with a bit of a diet change, cutting down on meat and alcohol especially. And eating certain things that helps your body deal with iron more efficantly, like dark chocolate… I get to use the line, “my doctor told me to have this after every meal” 😂
Haha well I guess at least you get an excuse for something you (hopefully) enjoy.
No disability is fun, and for what it’s worth I’m sorry that it’s a thing you have to find a way to manage. I imagine it’s rough. I have my own disabilities that.. we get by, eh?
Thanks for answering my questions though, I’ve not met anyone in that position, but it will absolutely factor into how I interact with people in the future, so thank you for being open :)
Always nice to have a silver lining!
I really don't want to think about a 10 year future where everyone has to go through this.