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Donating blood

wabisabikris

Cruising
May 8, 2012
48
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A bit off the topic of cycling but curious to know if anyone's donated blood in Japan. I've been a regular donor for years and noted anyone that has been in Japan over four weeks can be a donor. Has anyone tried?
 
Same here - can't donate under JP Red Cross rules because of the time I spent in the UK in the 1980s/1990s. This goes back to when a number of BSE (mad cow disease) cases were detected over there.
 
Owen - yep, you've got to live in Japan for over 10 years before they give you the all clear, it's to do with vCJD. I'm not sure about other nations though.
 
Japan has weird and strict rules, including if you've had m-m sex, overly tired, had a tatoo, lived in UK and other countries with a historyof BSE, etc. Somehow that didn't prevent the spread of HIV in the 80s nor another outbreak a few years ago of Hep. Generally speaking you need to be able to speak Japanese well enough to answer all the questions. if you pass, then you can donate.
 
FWIW, a japanese lab mate of mine does blood donation almost every other week. He once explained to me about the types of donation, the "normal" one (about 400ml of blood) and the "light" one (only certain elements are taken from the blood).

...He has a stock of detergents and other stuff he gets every time!
 
I used to donate blood farely often while I was in school since they would come on campus. After I graduated I used to go to the big Red Cross center in Shinjuku right next to the East-exit Kinokuniya. The questionare is in Japanese, but if you have trouble with reading the staff can help.

The only issue I ever had was when I used to still have all my piercings. It was the first thing they always would ask about, but since I had them in for several years already it was never a problem.
 
Thanks for the responses. No tatts, piercings are long gone, never been to the UK. My Japanese is very limited, though, but it might be up to scratch by the time I'm applicable to donate.
Thanks again.
 
I was advised by an oncologist back in the 90's to give blood as much as possible. Not sure if there is any reasoning to this - but his theory was that if you give blood (bleed alot) regularly, you reduce the free radical count in your blood system and also reduce the overal hemo-ferratin (??) which <may> be a cause of certain forms of cancer.

Here's some completely non vetted web article on it as well .. http://www.natmedtalk.com/f27/3210-donating-blood-may-reduce-cancer-risk.html

But I got this advise directly from an oncologist (like I say) back in the 90's at a very large Hospital that I was working as one of the Cancer Registry consultants for...
 
I used to give all the time, but about 18 years ago, one of the ladies at the clinic let it slip that while I give blood, being non-Japanese they mark it as such, and it almost never gets used, it gets dumped. I have a bit rare blood, it's "A RH Negative" which is not rare rare, but not common either. To hear that they tag my blood as "Gaijin" and then toss it, made me NOT go back anymore. I know what I heard was correct as I was with a Japanese friend from work at the time, she was a shocked as I was.
 
I used to give all the time, but about 18 years ago, one of the ladies at the clinic let it slip that while I give blood, being non-Japanese they mark it as such, and it almost never gets used, it gets dumped. I have a bit rare blood, it's "A RH Negative" which is not rare rare, but not common either. To hear that they tag my blood as "Gaijin" and then toss it, made me NOT go back anymore. I know what I heard was correct as I was with a Japanese friend from work at the time, she was a shocked as I was.

...w....whaaat? :eek::eek:
 
I used to give all the time, but about 18 years ago, one of the ladies at the clinic let it slip that while I give blood, being non-Japanese they mark it as such, and it almost never gets used, it gets dumped. I have a bit rare blood, it's "A RH Negative" which is not rare rare, but not common either. To hear that they tag my blood as "Gaijin" and then toss it, made me NOT go back anymore. I know what I heard was correct as I was with a Japanese friend from work at the time, she was a shocked as I was.

Most of the blood donated gets dumped!
Better to just keep your own in the refrigerator for personal use. Just keep it in a bowl of water with ice in. Then transfuse it back into your body the day before a race!
I'm sure NOTHING can go wrong!
 
I used to donate back in Canada all the time. I'd do a partial donation (platelets only, or platelets and plasma) every other week.

I've had no problems donating in Japan. You just have to wait 4 weeks after coming back from overseas.
I donated platelets several times at the clinic right across from Hachiko in Shibuya; it was brand new back in Dec 2010, I think. I haven't been back for a while though. I'd be really disappointed if they didn't use even my platelets. :(

The questionnaire does have some very basic questions, but the ones asking if you have existing medical conditions have lots of very technical terms all in kanji. If you don't have any conditions, just mark "None of the above" or leave blank, but if you do, learn what it is in Japanese and how to pick it out of a lineup.
 
At first I was shocked to hear that most gaijin blood would be thrown out but laughed so hard when I realised that it was such a Japanese thing to do (not saying "no" to the donation and going through the whole procedure just to save face). I'll be living in Japan eventually so I'd better get used to that kind of behaviour.
 
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