POZ Community Forums
Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: Ann on August 03, 2006, 06:42:14 am
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Have any of you come across this technology? It's an infrared light they shine on your arm that makes the veins show up so they don't have to keep sticking you to find a vein. I have hard to find veins and I wish my clinic had one of these lights!
Vein-viewer video. (http://www.webmd.com/content/pages/26/114818.htm)
Ann
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Thank goodness. I once spent a couple of summers working as a phlebotomist at a children's hospital. Sure could have used one there. Now if they can invent a machine to help me find my glasses.
Hal
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Hal darlin',
Let me know if you come across a glasses-finding machine. I've just been looking for mine for the past fifteen minutes and still can't find them. I need to go out and can't really leave the house without them, as I probably won't be able to find my way back home. Bleh.
Ann
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Ann,
Never come across the technology to help find a vein. I'm lucky though as my nurse never misses. My doctor, on the other hand, is not called the butcher on Bourke St for no reason :o
Closest thing I've seen is the opposite technology a type of uv light that makes it difficult to find a vein. It is very popular in public toilets and night club toilets in Sydney so that injecting drug users cannot use in their facilities.
Have you checked your head for your glasses?
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http://www.med1online.com/pc-5758-1308-venoscope-ii-transilluminator.aspx
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Ann Dear,
I never knew how many veins I had until I started wasting away. With 10 years of blood draws, I already know which veins roll and which are the most direct to get a sample from.
There was a new nurse working the labs on my last draw. He was terrified, went through veins, under the veins, over the veins, re poked and did it over and over. I finally told him to stop. He had only filled two of four vials filled. If I connected the dots it could have read "Home Sweet Home." I was under the impression a nurse had some training in drawing blood, but it was his first day on the job.
He went to get his supervisor, who finished the job. This supervisor has been my champion for a couple of years, I never complained but in all the times I have been in the clinic since, I have not seen our new nurse. When I go back for labs in September, I hope he finally learned how to drw blood. Have the best day
Michael
www.Commission-on-AIDS.org (http://www.Commission-on-AIDS.org)
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Hello Ann, it is Eldon. They should have one of those in every clinic. For me also it is hard to find my veins.
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I don't look good in yellow light ... are there other colours?
My most recent needling experience left me a bit nervous to drink anything afterward ... but I felt more anguish for the poor nurse trying her best to find a vein. I knew she was doing her best and my veins were doing theirs, so I just smiled and told her to keep trying until she was successful. I'm not sure that I'll ever grow to like needles, but having blood drawn regularly does make it less of an "event", at least for me.
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Nice invention! I hate it when guys take my blood. They always screw it up and in such a damn rush to get the needle in. I think some of them approach it like they approach having sex.
I can't see my veins (skin tone), but the nurses never have any problems find them. It's funny you bring this up Ann, because I asked my nurse during my last blood draw how she always find my veins so easily. She said she just feel them. I tried it and didn't feel anything. Oh well, that's why she's the professional and I'm the patient.
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Sounds like a cool litle gadget. I coulda really used something like it when I worked in the clinic.
I have veins you could drive a truck through, even without the tourniquet.
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I think everything depends on the skill of the vampire. I have a small black spot on my arm that has been used as a marker for a gusher vein. Works every time, a can't miss spot for a certain guaranteed blood draw gusher vein. Except for the last time.
I ended up with a nurse, a very sweet and kind person, who couldn't do a blood draw from an overflowing bucket full of blood at a slaughter house using a turkey baster.
Know what I mean!? People simple need to know their limits.
After four sticks and wiggles and "I just can't find a vein anywhere" whimperings, a real vampire came into the room and took over.
Light technology or not, a skilled blood sucker can have me any day.
BB
PS And no, I haven't heard of anything like the vein viewer you mentioned. Sorry!
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Wow! great invention. My nurse is 63 years old, always finds my veins and I can hardly feel anything. She is very professional and skilled. Unfortunately she told me last wednesday she wont be taking my blood samples anymore as her department of immunology is going to be closed and I will have to go to the general extraction waiting room that is always crowded. Till last week I recieved a VIP treatment (maximum five minutes wait or no waiting at all). Anyway she is going to retire in two years...I hope the rest of the nurses are as skilled and sweet as she is...