LOC donating blood

[Bleeding for the Cause]

I was recently donating blood and suffered a brief loss of consciousness (couple of minutes? I'm not sure, because I was unconscious!) during the procedure (it was a blood cell donation via the Alyx System, as opposed to whole blood, and they did get one complete unit from me). I presume that this needs to be reported at the next medical exam. Do I need to get my primary care physician to do any test or write anything? The technician attributed it to dehydration due to lack of fluid intake the day before, which is plausible. What documentation do I need to provide, if any?

I have had only one previous episode similar to this, 28 years ago. I have just realized that I did not report it on the medical exam, due to an oversight.

How big a deal is this? How to proceed? Comments? Dr. Bruce?

 

[bbchien]

Dear Bleeding for the cause: you need to PM me because I am going to say something I can't say in public....

 

[gismo]

I thought the FAA was only concerned about "unexplained" LOC. If you pass out after getting clobbered on the head or faint from fear of needles when getting your flu shot, I didn't think there would be any FAA medical exam issues. Am I wrong Bruce?

 

[bbchien]

I thought the FAA was only concerned about "unexplained" LOC. If you pass out after getting clobbered on the head or faint from fear of needles when getting your flu shot, I didn't think there would be any FAA medical exam issues. Am I wrong Bruce?

They will "give you" one unexplained LOC so long as it does not appear to be epileptic.

But, for it to be unexplained, you need to disprove all the explanations.

Thus the "fell out" workup as described.
For things like the OP asked, I asked, "is there any medical or insurance trail from the event?" and I will say not any more.

We picked up a LOT of normal, young nursing students off the Operating Room floor. We regarded this as normal- so long as someone saw it coming and let them down easily.....

 

[JasonCT]

They will "give you" one unexplained LOC so long as it does not appear to be epileptic.

For for it to be unexplained, you need to disprove all the explanations.

Thus the "fell out" workup as described.
For things like the OP asked, I asked, "is there any medical or insurance trail from the event?" and I will say not any more.

We picked up a LOT of normal, young nursing students off the Operating Room floor. We regarded this as normal- so long as someone saw it coming and let them down easily.....

When I went to embalming school this was pretty typical of the new students
It was interesting to see how many changed majors that week.

 

[bnt83]

When I went to embalming school this was pretty typical of the new students
It was interesting to see how many changed majors that week.

Wow. very nice

 

[DeeG]

When I went to embalming school this was pretty typical of the new students
It was interesting to see how many changed majors that week.

Embalming is pretty tame. They should have shown up at the autopsy! Got to see three in one day, only thing that made my knees week was them sticking that mile long needle in the eye and withdrawing fluid.

Seeing roadkill, OTOH, makes me want to vomit.

And I can't donate blood. Every time I try, they poke my finger and put that in the centrifuge. They can spin that thing all day long and my blood just floats at the top.

 

[kkoran]

You didn't lose consciousness...you were taking a nap.