Blood Donation & Qi

One may think that the blood donation process is a painful process as it involves a needle and a tube bag that siphons blood off your vein. In fact, the process is painless, except for a sensation of a needle prick. In fact, the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) blood bank nurse will give you a small tiny dose of anesthesia before drawing blood from you.

Initially I thought that the process will take about an hour. But it turned out to be only 15mins. So it is not as bad as it seems. Additionally, one also gets a complementary pack of iron tablet supplement, snack and drink at the end of the donation.

I get a sense of satisfaction as I watched the nurse took 400ml bag of my blood and put it to storage. My blood will definitely be useful to someone in need. And this is a picture of my arm with the yellow smiley bandage:

But when I got home. My mum started nagging at me. Hey son, why did you donate blood? You should at least inform me first. Donating blood is bad for your health as you loose Qi and you need to drink lots of tonic to replace your Qi.

In fact, I had a slight sense of dizziness and fatigue in the next following morning. But after I took the iron tablet, drank plenty of water, took vitamin C Redoxon supplement and drank a cup of MILO. I feel that my energy recovered later in the afternoon. I read that blood plasma takes about 24 hours to be replenished while red blood cells takes a little longer 4 to 6 weeks to be fully regenerated. So it may be due to low levels of iron in my blood and the loss of blood plasma that made me feel weak. I believe in looking at scientific evidence more than the believing in Qi.

Since I'm not entirely well today, I also decided to give the A* Star Scholar Network chalet event a miss. It will not be memorable if I were to faint at the chalet outing.