Originally Posted by djk7

I'll get back to the original topic of blood donations being good for one's health. When I donated in February, my hemoglobin was just under the cutoff, they tried a finger from my other hand and I just made it. That's only the second time in 60 donations that I was borderline. When I went back in April, I was solidly low. I had noticed that I was getting winded easily and more run down feeling after yard work, but didn't know why, the low iron seemed to be the culprit.

I saw my dr., got blood work and all of the iron related readings were really low compared to the previous ones several years ago. Had an endoscopy to rule out an ulcer, also antibiotics for h. pylori in any case. Endoscopy didn't find any problems and several months later my iron is back to normal and I feel back to normal too. The reason for my anemia are still unknown, but at least I got it checked out before it got too far along, I probably would have waited longer before seeing the dr. if it hadn't been for the low reading at the blood bank.