"Donating plasma"

My RNY was 12/22/16 and have been healthy and at goal weight without any issues. Blood tests are good. I've fallen on some very hard times and without an income the past few months. I can make $300 for 5 "donations" of my blood plasma. I did one yesterday and have four more to go. The centers requirement; BioLife requires four months from surgery. I'm well past that. This is only a short term fix. Trust me, I'm barely getting by now. Should I increase my iron? Currently taking 18mg +C. Plus multiple fit and calcium, all from Celebrate vitamins. If I can't find a job soon, I will be homeless or worse. I'm too embarrassed to call my doctor.

I'm sorry to read this. I have no info for you, being clueless about donating blood as a post-op. But I wanted to send you all of my best wishes for positive change, gainful employment, and stability. May things soon change, much for the better! Hang in there.

I have no personal experience but saw a study saying that it actually increases your ferratin counts to donate plasma Because they return red blood cells, the risk of iron depletion is low. That is not the case with blood donations. Donating blood does cause low iron counts.

Plasma donation doesn't cause iron depletion. Maybe very little. I may affect your blood proteins, and other Vitamins or minerals. Proteins is a must.

BTW: most companies have programs for people in hard financial situation. Ask Celebrate for help. They may be able to send you a month of 2 worth of vitamins and minerals.

But - Celebrate is IMO, a more expensive way to get what my body need.

For a long time I have been buying and using mormal multivitamins and minerals. Centrum is much cheaper, specially if you can buy it when on sale. They have pills or chewables. But for a long time I have been buying CVS brand multivitamins, Spectravite. They are equivalent to Centrum, and CVS often has them on "buy-one - get-one-free". For a long time my pouch hated pills, but CVS has also chewable multi. (Equivalent to Centrum chewable). When I was in "financial challenging days", I bought the multivitamins in pill form, and I would break the pill in half so my pouch would not get angry with me. Even without sale "BO-GO" the CVS pills are rather inexpensive. They have a bottle of 365 pills (centrum equivalent) that I would take 2 per day. I use that now.

Same with calcium. I buy generic calcium citrate and if large pills are a problem, I break them.

I have a question - I know after surgery they give a schedule about taking this vitamin so many hours apart from that (I think it is iron has to be taken with C but apart from calcium citrate?) Anyways, have you found taking the multi vitamins to be an issue and do you just take extra iron and then the calcium citrate on top of it spaced out or ?

It depends how much calcium the multi has. Often Multi has iron and calcium. Plus it often has the cheapest iron, so already difficult to absorb.

If your want to try to absorb the iron, I would take Multi away from additional calcium. I take "Senior" formula of Multi, no iron, so I take additional calcium with that, and take iron separately, not only from Calcium but also from any calcium rich foods, or drinks, and away from drinks with tanning (tea, coffee, red wine, etc) because tannins inhibit iron absorption.

Thanks for all your advice. My pouch gets funny with Centrum chewable and the swallowable bothers me. I found Trader Joe's high potency chewable work fine for me and affordable. No gummies as they're full of sugar. As long as I'm hydrated well, the procedure is quick, took only 37 minutes today. Because I'm thin, I get only 690 units of plasma out of me. I don't know the name of the measurement. It looks like an IV pouch. I have enough calcium to last me and I'm doubling up on Iron +C from 18mg to 36mg while I continue to donate. I'm going to do this until I can find a job so I don't become homeless.

I sent an email to Celebrate Vitamins. Hopefully they can help. I'll even take expired vitamins.

Have no idea what your cir****tances or background are...but Walmart is always hiring part time help. Not the greatest, I know, but it's something. I'm working there as a cashier to save up some money for certain home projects.

I hope things get better for you soon.

I'm not sure I can go back to work. I'm on FMLA and my anxiety is just too high even with meds. The meds make me loopy. I'm a social worker and very stressed out. I'm not ready to give up.