Donating plasma affecting my running?

Depends on how much you are giving, but normal donations will set you back for several weeks, but then you will be fine. Not the best thing to do when an important event is in the next couple weeks, but donating may be more important than feeling good running; somebody is benfitting greatly from your thoughtfulness.

Even though they replace everything besides plasma, your blood volume takes a hit.

that will definitely affect your running.

Think of it like this: When you sweat, your body pulls that moisture from your blood plasma. So, if you donate plasma, and are not careful enough in replacing it, you are dehydrating yourself, plus losing needed electrolytes.

Be very careful to rehydrate properly and watch your electrolyte balances after donating.

Tip: If you don't already do so, weigh yourself before donating and after, and before going to bed and after waking up and voiding. Drink at least that much weight in water plus fresh juice to replace what you lost. Each pound lost = 1 pint of liquid.

For example, say I wake up 2.4 pounds lighter in the morning. I'll start the day with about 6 oz of juice and a full quart of water. Then before heading out to run, I'll drink another pint, because I know I'm going to lose at least 3 pounds more from the run.

Hope this helps. Good luck to you.

I'm assuming they only take blood plasma, so your #RBC's should remain constant. Even then, plasma is the largest part of your blood volume and losing some can have adverse effects. Less plasma means your body has a decreased capacity to cool you off, it means thicker blood which is harder for your heart to pump, and it means decreased ability to cope with acute blood pressure changes like the ones involved during exercise.

However, unlike donating blood, it is much easier to replace plasma than RBC's. Just stay way on top of your hydration and like another poster said, your electrolytes. Have a water bottle with you at all times w/ water, or a half water, half orange juice w/ table salt mix.

Everytime you donate plasma it takes 48 hours to replace what they took from you. You do lose some RBC's if you ever look at the filter there is some still left in there. So you should get a run in before you donate for the day.

I donate 2 x a weeks....but I am no longer an athlete....I just run everyday to stay healthy. I talked with my friend who is a nurse, and she told me to make sure I drink plenty of water, and also eat more red meat to replace any iron and proteins that may be slightly effected.

So if donating plasma takes the blood volume down, what are the differences between donating plasma and sweating?

There are some runs in the summer where I will lose 5-6 pounds.

It would be nice to know exactly how much you lose in blood volume.. But keep in mind they replace the plasma that is donated with the same amount of saline. So its not like you are ~800ml less the plasma because most of it is replaced. Therefore, blood volume is not effected as much as you would think...However I wouldn't be surprised if there is a slight loss. Again, I would like to know the exact numbers.

However, you certainly lose most of the important proteins/electrolytes that are in your plasma, and there is no doubt in my mind that would effect performance. They need to be replaced. Some RBCs are lost as pointed out by another poster. It would be nice to know approximate values for RBC loss as well, and whether or not you lose enough to affect performance.

To dakotarunner: the only difference between sweating and donating plasma, is that when you sweat you are only losing water, and a small amount of electrolytes. Not nearly the amount of proteins/electrolytes are lost compared to donating. Again in terms of volume lost between the two, I have no idea. The idea of weighing immediately before and after donating makes sense. You could compare that to the weight lost after a long hot run.