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I've been meaning to start donating blood and/or plasma for a few years now, partly because it's a good thing to do, but also as a way to shed accumulating substances (PFASs have been studied, but also background heavy metals in the case of whole blood donation), but I use topical finasteride for hair loss, which I'd have to stop for a month before donating.

So, say I took a month off from finasteride, and then spent a month donating: whole blood once, and plasma 7 times. If my math is right, I'd have donated / regenerated 1 - 0.92^8 = ~half my blood volume; and ~10% of my body weight. Then maybe back to finasteride for two months, another month of no finasteride, and another donation month?

in reply to Daniel Filan

Maybe precisely in order to incentivize people to donate blood????
in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun

This doesnt address your musings . . . but I found plasma donation prohibitively unpleasant. It was painful and time consuming. By comparison, whole blood donation is a simple and easy way to help.