Blood drives always take blood pressure and then turn away those whose blood pressure doesn’t lower after a period of rest, why?
In:
You have to be generally healthy. Uncontrolled high blood pressure is not healthy, as you’re at risk for heart attacks, strokes, etc. You CAN donate if your high blood pressure is controlled by medication. [Here](https://hoxworth.org/donors/eligibility.html) is the eligibility requirements to donate for Hoxworth, who handles most Cincinnati area blood donations, etc.
Medical student 3rd year here – whilst not a huge expert on the topic ill pitch in.
I am not sure if people with hypertension can or cannot donate blood, pretty sure most can. But ill break it down for you through physiologically, and it very quickly becomes very complicated.
Hypertension by definition is sustained elevated blood pressure above the typical norm. Key word is sustained. Iur blood pressure doesnt stay put, a simple walk elevates blood pressure, and sleeping typically reduces blood pressure. Hypertension ultimately is a risk factor, and more so because unlike most other commonly known conditions it has no symptoms.
Through the bodies attempt to control hypertension – the mechanisms employed also effect different systems including the heart, the kidneys, blood vessels, your nerveous system etc.
Each system communicates with eachother via blood (also nerves) ex kidneys: we are detecting less blood – adjust hormone levels that regulate bloodpressure accordingly. In hypertension, these mechanisms fail and hypertension is the result.
So not only you are extracting blood which has a different amojnt of communicators in it because of a saturated disbalanced system, but you are also upsetting the system because a body usually whilst still working on an upset system, most of the time it manages to keep things running, but now you remove a considerable amount to upset the system.
Also drugs we ingest use blood to circulate to their effective site, which when you extract the blood youd also have drugs in it. ( you have to consider that amy chemical in the blood has a specific timer on it before it degrades, be it biological forced degredation or degredation by its own due to the chemical properties. You akso have to consider what it degrades to. )
Venosecrion i.e. taking blood from a body is too aggressive of a treatment to reduce bloodpressure because it does it so well in such a low period of time, risking damage to the brain because it doesnt recieve blood. Youd want somethingnwhich reduces blood pressure slowly at small increments as treatment.
Also hypertension usually is not alone, as your tyoical pt would have risk factors for other conditions shared with hypertension ex. obesity and smoking, which means most likely this pt has other ongoing pathologies in his bidy which expose him to ither problems. Rememeber just because there is no clinical signs doesnt mean you dont have the disease, it simply means your body is managing to balance out the negative effects of that disease. When you have symptoms it means your bodies systems to fight that disease have failed.
Hope it helped a bit 🙂
Latest Answers