Pre-Surgery Tranfusions?

I have thal minor and have had transfusions in the past (during and after pregnancy) due to extremely low H&H levels.  I know that when I was first diagnosed I was told by the doctor that I would likely have a slower recovery time after surgery due to the thal minor.  And I am now trying to schedule a sinus surgery (unrelated to thal) so I got to thinking, what if I did one transfusion before the surgery to get my levels up and help with recovery?  I wanted to see if anyone else ever did this and what the results might be?

As a general point of view, it may be quite a good idea - the thinking being that if your body is as close to "normal" levels as possible pre-surgery, then that can only help in the post-operative period.

The key would be to check where your Hb levels are pre-surgery - if >10.0, then it may not help so much, but below 10.0 it could be a good idea.

Rgds

Poirot

Hi,
I have done this before a complicated cataract surgery in November because my doctors were uncomfortable about using general anesthesia at a Hb of 7.something.
I didn't really think of it helping in recovery but it sure helped with the fatigue and breathlessness.  I was glad for the shortcut. Correcting the iron deficiency and B vitamin deficiency would have been much slower.
Zahra