Curious Blood Levels Question regarding RBC and Hematocrit

[stlstudent]

So by coincidence I had blood drawn multiple times in a short bit and was surprised the numbers did not change that much. For background, I use discountedlabs.com to keep an eye on my TRT and also donate to Red Cross when I'm eligible to keep Hematocrit in check.

This was the order they happened....Friday morning had labs drawn at LabCorp, Friday evening donated blood to Red Cross, next Wednesday was in the ER and had blood drawn.

The following are the numbers I'm curious of:

RBC: 6.11/NA/5.94
Hemoglobin: 17.6/19.4/16.7
Hematocrit: 51.4/NA/50.6

To me it really doesn't seem like my blood levels went down much at all! Keeping in mind I gave a few tubes at LabCorp, than 1 unit at Red Cross, than a few more tubes at ER. I figured my totals would drop more than that. Has me curious since I run in the upper levels and want to keep it in check during TRT.

Thoughts?

 

[Vince Carter]

HCT is said to drop 3 points with a 1 pint donation but then everyone is different, it's generally recommended to have a CBC 2 weeks after a donation so I don't see the point in waiting.

 

[stlstudent]

Yeah i could get it checked again down the road but you'd think as soon as it was out of the body, it would show up instead of taking time to go down. There was only a 5 day wait here. And I know you can get two blood tests back to back and they may show something different on all your numbers, was just hoping it did more good with my HCT than that

 

[Vince Carter]

Hydration plays a big part is what numbers you can pull from one time to the next, too that can skew the number up or down.