Club Covid

[JoeyT]

3 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/covid-19-research/plasma-donors/who-can-donate-plasma/ 

It has a criteria that you have to fulfil. If you are on the small side then you are unlikely to be able to. One of my friends has donated plasma 4 or 5 times now but another tried to donate and was told they didn't weigh enough. 

Cheers. Looks like I'm a wanted man.

Seems I can't register until I no longer have symptoms so will do so as soon as I'm symptomless!

[Crazyfool01]

3 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

Cheers. Looks like I'm a wanted man.

Seems I can't register until I no longer have symptoms so will do so as soon as I'm symptomless!

How’s things today ? 

[JoeyT]

14 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

How’s things today ? 

Better than yesterday!

Yesterday was a proper slog.

The headache has retreated slightly so that's made things easier.

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, JoeyT said:

Better than yesterday!

Yesterday was a proper slog.

The headache has retreated slightly so that's made things easier.

Fantastic ... fingers crossed it’s the upward slope from here 

[gigpusher]

25 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

Cheers. Looks like I'm a wanted man.

Seems I can't register until I no longer have symptoms so will do so as soon as I'm symptomless!

Yes get yourself right before you start helping others. Get well soon. 

[JoeyT]

3 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

Fantastic ... fingers crossed it’s the upward slope from here 

I hope so, I want to be free of symptoms so I can register to donate plasma to help others!

[Quark]

I'll look into the plasma thing as well.  Waiting for symptoms to completely clear (and car to be fixed!) so I can volunteer for vaccine centre stewarding and get my blood donation re-booked.

[gigpusher]

1 hour ago, Quark said:

I'll look into the plasma thing as well.  Waiting for symptoms to completely clear (and car to be fixed!) so I can volunteer for vaccine centre stewarding and get my blood donation re-booked.

Apparently donating 1 pint of plasma counts as 2 of blood as well. 

[Quark]

Just now, gigpusher said:

Apparently donating 1 pint of plasma counts as 2 of blood as well. 

Aye, will get the plasma thing sorted first and then book the blood for when I'm clear to donate again.

Checked the plasma site and looks like I need to wait for symptoms to completely clear as it asks for the last date you had any symptoms. 

[gigpusher]

Just now, Quark said:

Aye, will get the plasma thing sorted first and then book the blood for when I'm clear to donate again.

Checked the plasma site and looks like I need to wait for symptoms to completely clear as it asks for the last date you had any symptoms. 

If you are a good candidate you'll be doing it regularly. My mate has nicknamed himself the COVID cow as he's been back 5 times. 

[Quark]

Just now, gigpusher said:

If you are a good candidate you'll be doing it regularly. My mate has nicknamed himself the COVID cow as he's been back 5 times. 

That's interesting.  Is the gap between donation sessions 3 months like it is for blood?

[gigpusher]

Just now, Quark said:

That's interesting.  Is the gap between donation sessions 3 months like it is for blood?

No I think my mate only had COVID about 3 months ago. Think it's usually every 2 weeks but last time he went there was a problem with the machine which meant they couldn't give back the red blood cells so he has a 4 week break before he can go again. I guess they are pretty desperate for donors since there's only a small pool of COVID recovered patients who can do it. His wife wasn't eligible and another female friend of mine wasn't either. 

[Quark]

2 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

No I think my mate only had COVID about 3 months ago. Think it's usually every 2 weeks but last time he went there was a problem with the machine which meant they couldn't give back the red blood cells so he has a 4 week break before he can go again. I guess they are pretty desperate for donors since there's only a small pool of COVID recovered patients who can do it. His wife wasn't eligible and another female friend of mine wasn't either. 

OK good to know. Guess I'll be teeing myself up to milked for all I'm worth then 😀

[gigpusher]

Just now, Quark said:

OK good to know. Guess I'll be teeing myself up to milked for all I'm worth then 😀

Make sure you are feeling 100% yourself first but yes for a while at least you'll be milked for all your worth but think of the warm fuzzy glow you'll get from helping others. 

Mind you I have only ever donated 1 pint of blood and was specifically told not to come back because I wasn't worth the effort 😄 Apparently it's hard to find my veins, my blood comes out slowly and I take too long to recover. 

[Quark]

4 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

Make sure you are feeling 100% yourself first but yes for a while at least you'll be milked for all your worth but think of the warm fuzzy glow you'll get from helping others. 

Mind you I have only ever donated 1 pint of blood and was specifically told not to come back because I wasn't worth the effort 😄 Apparently it's hard to find my veins, my blood comes out slowly and I take too long to recover. 

Harsh 😄

I'm generally pretty good. Never had any side effects, I've been told I have "lovely veins" (!) and I seem to pump the stuff out a lot quicker than they  expect.

They might just end up keeping me at the centre and hooking me up permanently like something from Dr Who

[gigpusher]

3 minutes ago, Quark said:

Harsh 😄

I'm generally pretty good. Never had any side effects, I've been told I have "lovely veins" (!) and I seem to pump the stuff out a lot quicker than they  expect.

They might just end up keeping me at the centre and hooking me up permanently like something from Dr Who

Yep my friend who is doing it is a regular donor and because of his plasma donations is now up to 50 times donor. 

I did have to sit down for about half an hour afterwards and I felt really funny whilst doing it but still 😄 I'm not an especially squeamish person either so it wasn't any kind of fear thing but my veins have always been a bugger to find. When I was in hospital once and had to have blood taken a couple of times whilst I was in there I ended up with bruises all down my arm. 

[henry bear]

I had a SMS from the NHS regarding donating plasma. I've filled out the form and am waiting to hear back.

[Crazyfool01]

Thanks everyone who’s taking part in trials and helping people with plasma ... you are all bloody incredible people 

[Avalon_Fields]

On 1/8/2021 at 10:36 AM, Quark said:

I'll look into the plasma thing as well.  Waiting for symptoms to completely clear (and car to be fixed!) so I can volunteer for vaccine centre stewarding and get my blood donation re-booked.

I’d recommend working in a vaccination centre. It’s doing something worthwhile at a critically important moment for the country. It’s emotional, energising, hard work, and you meet amazing people every day.

[Quark]

8 hours ago, Avalon_Fields said:

I’d recommend working in a vaccination centre. It’s doing something worthwhile at a critically important moment for the country. It’s emotional, energising, hard work, and you meet amazing people every day.

Is that through the volunteer application or something else? I need to fit it around work, so the steward volunteering looks good for me as it's a limited number per month, which I can swing with work

[Avalon_Fields]

19 minutes ago, Quark said:

Is that through the volunteer application or something else? I need to fit it around work, so the steward volunteering looks good for me as it's a limited number per month, which I can swing with work

You’ll have to investigate where you live. I’m with Manchester Health & Care Commissioning, so there may be equivalents elsewhere. We cover medium sized locations like in sports centres.

The stewarding role (same as what we do) is via the Royal Voluntary Service GoodSam App, where the NHS Responders goes through too (I never found it that great). 

The mega centres opening soon are mainly run by the army so I understand. 

There is also the smaller health centres which may need some volunteers but none around here have asked for any yet.

The added unanticipated bonus is if there’s spare Pfizer vaccine at the end of the day some volunteers can get it, around 6 did tonight, including my wife. I received my second jab yesterday. 
 

Good luck

 

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Avalon_Fields

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

My ex who I spend a lot of time with kept complaining both her and her mum had completely lost there sense of taste of smell, before it was a confirmed symptom. I remember feeling slightly weird for a week around the same time, just slightly achey, a bit of a temperature, a bit tired but that was it. Later on when it was confirmed about the sense of taste and smell her mum had an antibody test and tested positive. I’ve never bothered so I may not have had it but it seems likely. My ex has had a load of weird after effects from it, one of which included a positive pregnancy test when she wasn’t, apparently having Covid creates some chemical that can give a false reading on them! 

[Zoo Music Girl]

19 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

My ex who I spend a lot of time with kept complaining both her and her mum had completely lost there sense of taste of smell, before it was a confirmed symptom. I remember feeling slightly weird for a week around the same time, just slightly achey, a bit of a temperature, a bit tired but that was it. Later on when it was confirmed about the sense of taste and smell her mum had an antibody test and tested positive. I’ve never bothered so I may not have had it but it seems likely. My ex has had a load of weird after effects from it, one of which included a positive pregnancy test when she wasn’t, apparently having Covid creates some chemical that can give a false reading on them! 

Even if you bothered now the antibodies might have already faded. My partner had a horrendous fever but no cough when it was just starting to kick off over here. At the time I really thought he had it but when he called 111 they said they were only testing people who had been to China, Iran or Italy. That week I had a cough and felt a bit as you describe (no loss of taste or smell, though).

We did antibody tests in October through the ONS study but were both negative. When I signed up for the study I was looking forward to finding out if we had it, but now we know the antibodies through getting it naturally can fade so I'm none the wiser. We probably didn't, to be fair.

I also had some bloody awful colds last winter so there was definitely some other shit going around.

Still waiting for my test result from Thursday. 

[JoeyT]

Feeling more or less back to normal today.

Not going to push it by doing any fitness.

The Wife asked if I wanted to do some yoga with her (oi oi) but don’t want to rush in to anything which will put me back a bit.

Those who have recovered, how long did you leave it before doing fitness? I’m not sure what the sensible answer is!

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, JoeyT said:

Feeling more or less back to normal today.

Not going to push it by doing any fitness.

The Wife asked if I wanted to do some yoga with her (oi oi) but don’t want to rush in to anything which will put me back a bit.

Those who have recovered, how long did you leave it before doing fitness? I’m not sure what the sensible answer is!

Personally I’d think the best way is to rest for maybe a week after symptoms have gone ... and then slowly build up ... great news that you are better