I was thinking about putting my self on the list to give bone marrow. does anyone know how much it hurts and for how long? the odds of someone being a match are pretty slim, so I was thinking that if they call me up years from now I may have a job that requires me to do a lot of walking or lifting(I am in college to be an engineer, but its possible), thus I may not want to give at that point. I would like to be on the list but I don’t want to back out to save my job or something and give a dieing person false hope.

If anyone knows anything about it I would appreciate your input. I would ask the people at the bone marrow registry (or whatever its called) but of course they will tell me “you may be sore for a few days” even if it was the most painful thing on earth.

I have heard it is quite painful however they do give you pain pills to help relieve that.

I don’t doubt that it hurts; I just want to know if I will be functional within a couple of days. (Mentally and physically)

You'll be just fine in a few hours actually. The worst part is removing the marrow which they adsminister a local anisthetic or a mild general one. It wears off rathr quickly i'm told and then your up and on your way. They request that you should take the pain pills until the pain totally is gone but actually after a day or two there's not much pain left in most cases.

That’s good to know, I will probably sign up then. Nobody will probably need my marrow anyway; I have mostly northern European blood, which has the lowest demand(maybe some native American though)