I had some blood tests yesterday, as I’m knocking 40 (routine apparently!) they didn’t take out all that much, a few medium sized tubes.

I jumped on my trainer today to do some exercise after work (I live in nz, so winter, dark, cold and wet) and I was doing intervals, 5 mins, 10 mins off 5 mins on etc. I started breathing a bit irregular on the first interval. On the second interval felt like I was having an astma attack so I stopped and did the sensible thing and opened a bottle of wine instead.

Does taking out a little bit of blood make that much difference? I know adding it is all the rage with the sky team, but how much do you have to take out before you are weak as a kitten?

I have note in my medical file, warning that whenever I have blood taken, I’m likely to pass out and start convulsing and frothing at the mouth. Dunno if it’s related to my low blood pressure, I’m fine with needles for vaccinations and local anaesthetic. :/

I frothed at the mouth, but that was the wine rather than execsise induce. It was cheap wine,

I have foolishly gone riding and played five-a-side after giving blood without thinking about it. Certainly felt pretty wonky (lightheaded and running on empty) on both occasions with 400 ml or so less blood so I wouldn’t be surprised if a few ‘medium tubes’ made a difference.

As a safety measure I now skip straight to the wine after giving blood and have a couple of days break before going back to strenuous exercise.

Make sure its red wine. It helps get the red back into your blood stream.

That’s what I thought. Wine is thinner than blood I noticed, so will go for a 100:1 ratio of loss to replacement, youknow to be on the safe side.

My wife lost 1.5 litres of the stuff giving birth to our daughter. She was pretty wasted for a few days down to the loss of blood…

As the great Tony Hancock said; “A pint?! That’s nearly an arm full!”

Yes.

I’m a regular blood donor, so lose about a pint a time. Went out for a big ride on the Sunday, after donating on the Friday night. Big mistake, felt absolutely terrible, almost puked on the last hill, felt dizzy and weak like when I first started riding, and my lungs and heart wanted to jump out my throat.

Then I remembered, after talking to the nurse on a previous visit about how long it can take for the body to replace that much blood, that it can take up to 2 weeks. Lesson learned, so I try no to push myself to hard after losing that much blood, and let my body do it’s thang, and top itself up before I start going for it again.

( Not a doctor or a medical expert, so happy to be corrected if I’ve not got that exactly right )

Top tip – do not give blood before going on a ski touring trip. Lots of exercise at >= 2000m when you live live at 150m is not a good idea with one arm empty!

walking briskly up Conduit Road, after giving blood, is not recommended.

But I only did a couple of test tubes, that must be a 10th of a pint tops? I presume that it did make a difference, as I was training on my limit, but I’m still surprised it had the effect it did.