bigsmith97
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my hemoglobin is at 18.3 & i feel like shit. also my elbows are starting to kill me out of nowhere
Finger poke or labs? Can make a difference. Mine was 18.3 when donating, but labs after 15.x and my doctor said the finger poke is always over.my hemoglobin is at 18.3 & i feel like shit. also my elbows are starting to kill me out of nowhere
labs.W
Finger poke or labs? Can make a difference. Mine was 18.3 when donating, but labs after 15.x and my doctor said the finger poke is always over.
Hemoglobinometer like the HemoCue are known to be usually at least 1 gram higher than venous blood tested using a hematology analyzer when testing men aas users that are at the upper limits of normal.W
Finger poke or labs? Can make a difference. Mine was 18.3 when donating, but labs after 15.x and my doctor said the finger poke is always over.
The problem is most clinicians won't allow those of us with chronically high hgb from aas use to have repeated access to therapeutic phlebotomy without refusing to treat someone that is going against a doctors order. If you have 20+g/dl hgb over and over, very few clinicians will keep you as a patient if they know you're using AAS.Guys, don’t do your own phlebotomies. Jesus Christ lol
Could also be dehydrationmy hemoglobin is at 18.3 & i feel like shit. also my elbows are starting to kill me out of nowhere
Well said. Yeah mine was 15 and some change maybe 5 hours after donation and last year hovered around 16. They told me if your levels high they'll draw your blood anyway to get the level down. Not sure how accurate that is.Hemoglobinometer like the HemoCue are known to be usually at least 1 gram higher than venous blood tested using a hematology analyzer when testing men aas users that are at the upper limits of normal.
The problem people run into when donating is that aas users are often at the upper limits of these capillary analyzers and hemoglobinometers don't do well when ranges are at the lower range....below 12.5g/dl or higher range 20g/dl. They are for all practical purposes worthless for aas users that have higher than normal hemoglobin.
The main purpose of these hemoglobinometers was to screen out those that are anemic (below 12.5g/dl) and in the danger zone for removing more than 10% of blood volume as that would push them to tachycardia(increased heart rate) and possible iron deficiency.
AAS users with higher hemoglobins should by default always be allowed to donate no matter how high the hemoglobin. This blood will be screened for blood diseases to determine safety and it can be put back for those in trauma, GI bleeds, surgery where large blood loss often requires 10 to 20 units of blood.
The logistics of onsite testing using a hemoglobinometer should only be used as a screen for anemia, not increased red blood cells, as AAS users aren't at risk for volume loss donating 1 unit or double/power red if they have a higher hgb. Instead blood banks can use a 10ml EDTA without gel, centrifuged, collected first inline along with unit of blood and a scale in millimeters used as a backdrop to determine the plasma to packed red blood cell ratio which will give an accurate hematocrit that will typically read about 1.5% higher than a hemotology analyzer that uses venous blood.
AAS blood donation is poorly understood with lots of theories as to why we shouldn't be allowed to donate if we go over the cut off which is usually 20g/dl hgb. Some state that we have longer bleeding times, others state we are prone to greater clotting with increase fibrinogen(separated fresh frozen plasma). That we would produce a unit of blood that is too large and could possibly cause an infusion error with overload for the transfusion patient which would stress the heart and brain. And of course we use needles and anabolics are illegal so that puts us in the junkie category, but I've not seen evidence for higher than normal HIV/Hepatitis infection rates among steroid users that don't use other illegal drugs and most of the data stating otherwise was collected back in the 80's and 90's when syringe and needles were harder to come by, which can even be a problem today as needle and syringes can be hard to source locally as drug war zealots look to restrict access. The only other possible source of infection would be the finished gear itself, but I have always recommended everyone to heat their vials to 160F for 90 minute using a heating pad set on high(heating pads don't go above 176F) as this will deactivate any virus and render bacteria incapable of reproducing using the heat and time ratio.