Blood Drain and Energy Loss

[Jack7]

I went to give blood yesterday. I'm hardly a "blood donor virgin," as I've given several times in the past.

Usually I'm back to speed after a good meal and a night's sleep.

But this time it's like I'm totally tapped out. I slept some this morning and afternoon after rising at about 6:00. But I'm still groggy and sluggish and my body feels like it's been three days without sleep. I'm just really tired.

And I've been ravenously hungry. Eating and drinking every couple of hours when awake. And I have a slight headache (I almost never get them) which feels more like a cloud or fog over my concentration rather than a pain.

This ever happen to anyone else? If so how long did it take you to get back up to normal?

 

[Janx]

You may have lost a level, which would explain how your feeling.

I recommend running around killing townspeople until you've earned enough XP to level up.
When the polcie come, remember they are worth more XP.

Good luck!

 

[Jack7]

I think I now know why this may have happened, though at first I didn't connect the two. Thursday the 22nd of July I woke up and my supra clavicle lymph node (port side) had swollen to the size of an embedded golf ball. A couple of days earlier I had been cutting down trees and apparently something had bitten me, probably a spider or tick. I didn't think much of it at the time but a couple of days later I had the swelling. It wasn't painful, just very large, and the swelling was right under the bite mark.

I treated it myself and it slowly started to recede and I forgot about it.

Then after I gave blood I was totally exhausted. But today I woke up, feeling some better and did some further research on swollen lymph nodes. Turns out that as they release all of the lymphatic fluid in a swollen area the toxins flood your bloodstream so they can be filtered and expelled by your organs. Usually this is a very slow process and concentrations are not high, so unless you've been severely poisoned or envenomed this is hardly noticed.

All well enough. But apparently the fact that I gave blood greatly accelerated the flush out of my lymph nodes (because the day after I gave blood the knot has nearly disappeared) and since I was down due to having donated blood the toxins flushed out probably seemed far more potent and the concentrations far higher to me due to the fact that I was lower on blood than normal. I suspect that the change in blood levels and blood pressure due to having donated caused my lymphatic system to begin an immediate and accelerated dump of the infected lymphatic fluids back into my bloodstream. I further suspect that at that point the lymphatic fluids were under heavier pressure than was my blood and as blood levels dropped temporarily they flushed out far quicker than normal.

It accelerated the toxin release, but because my blood levels were down the effect was far more potent than normal. It's just a theory but it makes a lot of sense given the evidence.

Once I remembered the injury from the week and a half before then the exhaustion began to make sense.

Anyways I feel better today and think I'll likely be back to normal tomorrow or Tuesday by the latest.