Donating bone marrow

Former Member

Has anyone donated bone marrow?

I donate blood and they always have leaflets around about bone marrow, I think I might do it but I'm unsure..and does it hurt??

Former Member

Mr Creamcheese was going to do it as a child relative of mine needed a transplant (which couldnt be from a relative) and he had some blood tests, but she found another donor in the end, so he didnt get round to doing it.
Im fairly sure its an "uncomfortable" procedure but there are so few donors, its really worth doing if youre interested. Mr CC is definitely going to do it at some point soon.
http://www.blood.co.uk/pages/marrow_info.html

Former Member

I have a fear of needles and was going to do that instead of donating blood. Then my ex bf told me that they use a drill to drill through the bone and that kinda creeped me out. With all the painkillers they have these day i assume it wouldnt hurt much though, more the though than anything

Former Member

I've never had it done, but I have seen a person have some bown marrow taken for tests and well it didn't look particularly comfortable and pleasent, but you wouldn't expect it to be really. Maybe next time you go to give blood mention it and ask about the procedure.

Former Member

My friend volunteers for a charity called Marrow and she said that if people are donating, they usually take blood in the same manner that a person donating blood would give i.e. no scary wide bore needles etc.

Former Member

I;'m going to sign up to this

Former Member

go_away wrote: »

My friend volunteers for a charity called Marrow and she said that if people are donating, they usually take blood in the same manner that a person donating blood would give i.e. no scary wide bore needles etc.

So they dont drill you? Oh then I want to sign up aswell

Former Member

If you want to be on the bone marrow register then when you go to give blood they just take a couple of extra small bottles of blood for tissue typing etc. They then store your details on a national register and if your tissue type matches someone who requires a transplant they call you up. A very large percentage of people on the register will never be called to donate because most of the time doctors prefer the donor to be a close relative, to get as close a match as possible. I've been on the register for about 3 years and never heard anything. But if you are called up, from what i have read, they treat you fantastically, and all the donor stories i have read say there is a little discomfort, but nothing too bad. But in my opinion, a little discomfort when the marrow could potentially save someone's life is nothing

Former Member

Saw it on Paul O'Grady last night, thinking about putting my name down for it.

Can't put a price on life and all that.

Former Member

I signed up for a bone marrow transplant organization (the Anthony Nolan trust) in my first year of uni.

They took a blood sample and I didn't hear from them for about 3 years, until after I'd graduated. I got a packet through the post with the "biohazard" logo on the front and it scared the crap out of me. Turned out someone with lukemia seemed to match my blood sample so they had sent me two plastic vials to fill up with blood and return, so they could confirm the match. Apparently with my bone marrow they would have a 40-60% chance of living.

I got my GP to send in the blood sample, but it turned out it didn't match after all. Don't know whether the person died or not though.

After that I did some research into it and apparently a significant proportion of donations result in incapacitation for several weeks and severe pain, or infections/MRSA. However, now you can instead just donate marrow stem cells (something like that) which means no operation, just a very long hypodermic needle being pushed into your hip and the cells extracted. This doesn't give the recipient as much chance of surviving though.

I thought about taking myself off the register, but didn't. I sort of consider it a contribution to make up for the bad stuff I do in life, and my general good luck compared to others. Basically, if there was another match I might go through agony or even die after the operation, but the chances are slim - and if I had lukemia I'd want somebody else to do the same for me.