Smokers can donate blood but if you smoke you should avoid smoking on the day you donate blood.
Smoking before you donate blood can increase your blood pressure.
You cannot donate blood twice in a month as it's unhealthy to do so.
You have to wait a few months or so between donating blood depending on whether you're male or female.
Any healthy adult, both male and female, can donate blood.
Men can donate safely once in every three months while women can donate every four months.
Donating blood does not shorten your life.
It's very safe to donate blood as your body naturally and pretty quickly replenishes the blood that you donate.
You can still live a long life when donating blood and you'll be saving someone's life by the blood donation as well.
When you donate blood the amount of blood that is taken from your body for blood donation is 0.5 L of blood.
For a whole blood donation, approximately 0.5 L of blood is collected.
For donations of other blood products, such as platelet or plasma, the amount collected depends on your height, weight and platelet count.
Things you should not do before giving blood are eating fatty foods, including hamburger, fries or ice cream.
You should also avoid coffee or other caffeine based drinks.
Drink plenty of water before the blood donation.
Check to see if any medications you are taking or recently took would prevent you from donating.
For example, if you are a platelet donor, you must not take aspirin for two days prior to donating.
You can donate blood even if you have a tattoo as long as the tattoo was done by a certified tattoo artist.
There is a rule though: you have to wait four months from the date of your tattoo or piercing before donating blood.
And if you give blood between four months to a year after having a tattoo or piercing, staff at the donation center might have a few extra safety checks to do.
When you have high blood pressure you cannot donate blood while the blood pressure is high because it can affect your health and the blood may flow to fast out of your body as well.
Once your blood pressure has decreased though then you can donate blood.
Acceptable blood pressure rate for blood donation is below 180 systolic (first number) and below 100 diastolic (second number) at the time of donation.
Even though, the donor is on regular medications, one must understand that medications for high blood pressure do not disqualify you from donating blood.
Provided, you don’t have side effects related to your medication.
Also, the person shouldn’t be suffering from other co-morbid diseases associated with hypertension.
People who have fluctuating blood pressure with irregular treatment must stay away from donating.