I had 10 vials of blood removed. Is that detrimental?

this is a very rough estimate, but assume you are a normal adult and have 5-6 liters of blood. 10 vials is about 100 ml, or 2% of your blood volume. the oxygen-carrying capacity of your blood is largely dependent on the amount of hemoglobin you have and the oxygen saturation of that hemoglobin; oxygen directly dissolved in blood plays a nearly-negligible role. overall, you would be facing an approximate 2% decrease in oxygen-carrying capacity. that should theoretically mean a 2% decrease in your VO2 max, which doesn't seem like it would make a big difference for normal training or even running at lactate threshold.

red blood cells are turned over every 2-3 months, but with acute blood loss, your body's epo will jump-start the RBC maturation process. does anyone know if this speeds up RBC synthesis by any appreciable amount? certainly it seems to be reported that reticulocytosis is seen as early as several days out.

would like to hear others' input on this as well.

Not if you get it back in 3 or 4 weeks.

Thanks for the response. From what I've read anecdotally, it seems like it would have a minor effect but I wouldn't be back to normal until about 3-4 weeks. Would appreciate more testimony from others.

Are you a Jamaican sprinter?

just a little overfill please wrote:

Not if you get it back in 3 or 4 weeks.

+1

to performance wrote:

I had no choice, the doctor needs to check a bunch of things. I've read that donating blood can ruin an entire season (like 3 months until RBC are replenished).

But what about 10 vials? Donating blood is a pint, which I think is closer to 47 vials.

Wow! - that's a lot.

I am not an MD, but from what I know from giving a pint of blood, it does have a small effect for about day or two, but after that every thing is back to normal. It is probably nothing to worry about unless you have an important competiton the next day. The profssionals will tell you that it has no effect at all, but I do feel weaker for 24 hours after giving blood and I have heard other people say the same thing.

to performance wrote:

I had no choice, the doctor needs to check a bunch of things.

That is totally crazy.

Tell the doctor quack to do his bogus experiments on himself.

What you need and what the doctor quack needs are two totally different things.

TrackCoach,

I'm surprised that you would say that regarding a pint of blood. A quick search on here reveals that blood donation wreaks havoc on runners. I just haven't found that much information on the amount I had withdrawn.

J.R. wrote:

to performance wrote:

I had no choice, the doctor needs to check a bunch of things.

That is totally crazy.

Tell the doctor quack to do his bogus experiments on himself.

What you need and what the doctor quack needs are two totally different things.

Losing a pint is going to take more than a couple of days to recover. You can replace the volume lost through hydration, which helps, but the RBCs are gone for several weeks