I feel a little confused as to why more people don’t seem to do it. Apparently you can get like $200-300 a week and it seems like there are no serious short term or long term side effects, but I feel like I must be missing something.
I did for a period. It kinda sucks because if they mess something up you don’t get paid. Sometimes you have to wait a while and it makes it not as worth the time. The pay generally goes down after your first month promo is over
Still, its worth trying out and was good time for getting some reading done. It really depends how well your center is run
I never had any medical issues or side effects, except that alcohol would hit me like a truck the days I donated
The whole premise of it a is really icky and you are being exploited in a major way. The people working there are also not paid all that well AFAIK. You’ll notice that the centers tend to be in low income neighborhoods. And while they say you are “doing a great thing” and helping people with rare diseases, you are really helping them turn huge profits as the specialized medicines they make from the plasma are very expensive for the patients as well.
I had the best time with grifols/biomat. I also tried biolife (decent) and octapharma (bad)
When you’re promo is up, you can switch to a different center for their promo but you must wait one week in?between.
I did it back in college but it kinda sucks. I had weird bruises all the time, sometimes I’d get turned away for not having juicy enough veins, sometimes it hurt to get jabbed. Not a fun experience but it got me by.
It also sucks that they’re allowed to call it “donating” when these companies primarily sell and export your plasma for profit. It’s selling blood to vampires.
If I just get a bruise here and there it wouldn’t be a big deal to me, as long as they heal. Just more literal than the usual means by which the vampires feed off of me.
I guess I’m just wondering if there’s any way in which it is particularly worse than other forms of exploitation.
HRT bars me from I have learned
I’d do it regularly but so much of the time I spent in the centers was just waiting around doing nothing. Even though the process only took an hour or so, you had to wait 2-3 just to sit down in the chair. $80 for 4 hours is still worth it but only just barely since you can only do it twice a week.
It kinda bills itself as a “Quick in and out deal to get some spending money” but it’s closer to an entire half-day of waiting/donating and then feeling kinda tired for the rest of it.
