Medical History

jenandsarah

I can not find a donor I like with a decent medical history! Am I being to picky??? Its one of the first things we look for. I feel like every donor has something wrong. I know they aren't "super heros" and they aren't perfect but we would like someone who at least hasn't had.................

high blood pressure
cancer
mental illness

We really can't find anyone that fits what we are looking for :-(

Help!

Amirasmommy

Yes! You're being too picky. These donors are real people. You'd be hard pressed to find any american who doesn't have these things in their family medical history. Everyone does. You just need to look for patterns. Like multiple people with cancer...ESP the same type. Or multiple people with mental illness or HBP...or whatever. But everyone is going to have a few blemishes. You also have to keep in mind that the banks have geneticist on staff who will weed out donors who have more risk of any particular illness than the general population. I've looked at dozens of donors in detail and really every one of them had a much better family medical history than most people I know. Standards are important but you also need to be realistic.

thoward

I agree! We also spoke to our doctor about what we should look for in the medical history. She said to concentrate on his immediate family and try to avoid ones with a lot of blemishes. I agree with Amirasmommy - every person has a few spots on their medical history. There isn't a family out there with a perfect record!
When we were looking at donors we took his medical history to our primary doctor and our fertility doctor to look over.
Best of luck to you!

Amirasmommy

Great suggestion. Take the history to your doc for an opinion.

jenandsarah

Thanks!

Anne72

You should also know your own medical history and try to find one that works with yours. For example, there is a high risk of type 2 diabetes in my family so I weed that out.

Janet

In addition to what the others have said, remember that some of these medical problems are caused by lifestyle. Certain cancers, for instance, may have been because the person was a long time smoker. High blood pressure, heart attacks, or type II diabetes could be a result of poor diet and obesity. If I look at my own family history, it's definitely not perfect... but some of it could have been preventable by the people afflicted.