As college students scrounge for extra cash to pay for tuition, rent, food and other necessities, many turn to donating their plasma.
While these college students know they can make a decent chunk of money through monthly plasma donation, few understand what their harvested plasma will be used for.
Donating plasma doesn’t require donors to be familiar with the use and science behind plasma donation. Most only know that one needle stick and an hour later, they are a couple bucks richer and missing some bodily fluids.
This fluid makes up more than half of the blood contained in our body and is what red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets are suspended in. It is 92% water, 7% protein and 1% mineral salts, sugars, fats, hormones and vitamins.
Miriam Zeidner, who donates plasma twice a week, said she only knows “a little bit” about what her plasma is actually used for.
“I knew it helped in modern medicine but my main motivation was money,” Zeidner said as she explained how she adds a little extra cash to her monthly income.
While most donors don’t need to understand where their plasma is going and what it will be used for, there are others, such as Jason Divis, whose lives revolve around it.
Divis is a student at BYU who has what is known as common variable immunodeficiency, a deficiency requiring him to receive plasma donations in order to stay happy and healthy.
Common variable immunodeficiency is an immune system disorder that causes low levels of the proteins in the body that help fight infections.
“I basically just have a weaker immune system than most people,” Divis said.
Divis was born with common variable immunodeficiency, but it wasn’t until he was 13 years old that he started to receive plasma donations.
Patients with common variable immunodeficiency receive their plasma donations in the form of an “immune globulin infusion."
While common variable immunodeficiency is not a rare disease, most of the time these infusions are “used for more rare conditions” Divis said.
When Divis began his infusions, he said they didn’t kick in right away. It took him around a year to start noticing a real difference in his health.
“Probably like a year because your body takes a while to adjust to it,” Divis said.
Now, Divis said he receives a subcutaneous infusion of plasma once a week through the fat in his leg. He said he is able to administer this infusion himself so he doesn’t need to go to a specific location each time.
While it takes plasma donors approximately one hour to donate plasma at nearby facilities, it takes Divis longer to complete each infusion.
“It’s like a shot, but it takes a couple hours to inject,” Divis said. “I can move around, it's just a little inconvenient, so I usually kind of just hangout.”
The plasma Divis receives to stay healthy comes from what is called a batch of plasma.
“One vial comes from a batch of plasma with plasma from 20 to 50 thousand people,” Divis said.
That may seem like a big number but one of the main reasons for having so many donations in one batch of plasma is to “diversify immunity in it."
To treat conditions such as Divis' and many others it can take up to 130 plasma donations per year, according to the American College of allergy, asthma and immunology. Ten to 40 donations go into a single dose of gamma globulin.
“Plasma donation is a gift of life,” J. Allen Meadows, president of American College of allergy, asthma and immunology, said.
Divis said he will need to continue receiving infusions for the rest of his life in order to keep him from getting sick all of the time.
This means he will need to count on the generosity of people willing to donate their time and plasma for the rest of his life.