gorgeous757

A co-worker and I were discussing giving bone marrow. From what we've read, it looks like they give you anaesthesia and you'll feel like a truck hit your back afterwards. Not a huge deal, I can handle pain, especially for a good cause.

I give blood regularly and am perfectly fine with it.

Anyone ever done it? Or know anything about it? I've been thinking a lot about it smile.gif

Visionz

I've never given marrow, but I heard it hurts like hell. I give blood on a regular basis also. Always feels good to be helping someone that may need it. smile.gif


I'm also an organ donor too and have it all filled out on my license. smile.gif

radu_rd2

Considering this is a very nice gesture on your part.

I have given marrow cells to myself heh

The old surgical way might still be necessary in some cases (i don't know), but the modern way is to donate 'bone marrow stem cells' (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hematopoietic...transplantation ). They give you some shots (Filgrastim/neupogen) which stimulate the bone marrow cells to replicate and get out of the bones and into the blood. Then they harvest the cells from your blood by circulating your blood through a machine.

What this entails is: a couple of shots per day for a few days (painless shots, very small needles, you can do them yourself), then you go there for a day or two and stay for about 4-6 hours with a needle in your hand. It's not bad at all. You might get some temporary bone pain from the shots (the bone marrow replicates so much that it pushes against the bones). And for a few days you will be a superhuman, having 5-10x more blood cells than usual haha (you don't feel any different though)


I think that you can't donate it at your convenience though. I think you register as a donor and they call you whenever you are a match for a patient who needs it. Not being able to donate when they need you to is pretty bad for the patient, so this is a pretty big commitment.

Unfortunately your bone marrow can either save the patient's life, or kill him/her by attacking his tissues (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graft_vs_host_disease ). They try to minimize this by looking for good matches but the process is far from perfect. On the other hand, this procedure is usually the only chance of survival for those who resort to it.

Doc

Donating blood on a regular basis is great.

Donating bone marrow...
If you can have the procedure done listed by Radu (above this post) that is a much better way to have it done than the bone marrow being taken the way it usually is. For the old way of acquiring bone marrow (very painful), I only recommend doing it for people you know (ex. friends or family).

ereeves116

i'm in the same boat as V. good to know there's a lot of people out there who are willing to give.

i would suggest everyone give blood at least once and awhile. Working on cars gets a lot of heavy metals and chemicals into your system.