How Often Can You Donate Plasma?

Whether you’re trying to achieve a financial goal, saving up for an upcoming holiday celebration, or simply want to give back to others - you may want to donate plasma as much as possible but is donating often safe? We sat down with our BioLife Medical Affairs team and asked these questions for you, so you can feel good about donating plasma often and helping save even more lives.

Per FDA Regulations: you can donate plasma twice in a 7-day period (week) but not more than once in a 2-day period.

Plasma is the liquid part of blood which contains approximately 90% water and 10% solutes (e.g., protein, electrolytes, etc.).

Plasma serves many functions in the body, including distributing nutrients to different areas of the body, helping you recover from injury, removing waste, supplying proteins for clotting and immunity, maintaining blood pressure and volume, etc.

Millions of plasma donations have been given in the past 50+ years, with no evidence of harmful long-term effects for the donor.

Some people who donate plasma on a regular basis may experience changes in their hematocrit (percentage of blood volume occupied by red blood cells) and/or serum protein content. To monitor this, BioLife performs blood tests before each plasma donation. If the test results are outside the acceptable ranges for donation, the donor will be temporarily deferred from plasma donations.

If you have more questions about the plasma donation and how it may affect you, please speak to our qualified center staff.

There are strict requirements for plasma donation set up by the FDA and other regulatory agencies. Before your first plasma donation and annually after, you will have a medical history interview, a physical exam, and a blood test. This is to confirm that you meet our health criteria to donate and that plasma donation should be safe for you. Also, before each individual plasma donation, you will have a shortened medical history interview and blood test to confirm that you remain eligible to donate that day.

Some donors will be asked to speak to their doctor to decide if the donor can donate. Our Center Physicians will evaluate the medical condition on donor eligibility criteria and the individual’s safety.

If you have any questions about whether you should donate, we encourage you to speak to our center medical team and/or your doctor.

Follow the nutrition guidelines shared with you by the Medical Support Specialist at the time of your first physical examination. Continue to live a healthy lifestyle and take care of yourself.

Plasma collected from our donors is processed into a wide variety of life-saving products that help hundreds of thousands of individuals receiving treatment for serious disorders such as hemophilia, immune disorders (i.e., primary immunodeficiency – PID, hereditary angioedema, etc.), and treat victims with burns and trauma.

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