What to Expect After Donating Blood

Video Transcript

"What we just saw was standard whole blood donation. Things to expect after doing a whole blood donation are, basically, you want to replenish all the fluids that we took. We collected four-hundred fifty milliliters of whole blood and that's about ten percent of the total volume in your body. So, we have you wait fifteen minutes in the canteen afterwards and we have you drink juice. That's going to start you on the replenishment of fluids. What you should expect over the next couple of days is a slight decrease in athletic ability. So, we want to make sure donors wait twenty-four full hours before resuming and exercise routine or playing sports, this will make sure that they don't have any reactions while they're actually playing. The decreased amount of red blood will make it a little bit harder for you to process oxygen. Red cells are what carries your oxygen. You can feel fatigued easier but if you wait twenty-four hours before resuming any activities you'll be just fine. After the twenty-four hour period elapses your body will adapt and you can resume all exercise or sports or any athletic things that you do. You want to also keep fluid intake going up over the next couple days."