LafayetteLady
Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
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ORIGINAL: windchymes
After 23 years of being a medical lab tech, which includes a lot of up close and personal with veins, this thread is making me crazy, lol.
Hydration is good, but the best way to get your little veins plumped up is to take a brisk walk around the block or around the parking lot right before coming in. Get your heart pumping, your blood pressure up, your blood flowing through the veins. You will make everyone's job so much easier if you just do that. Most people show up for blood draws or surgery early in the morning when they're sleepy and cold, the heart rate is slower and the blood pressure is lower. Just take a walk, get yourself warmed up, get your blood moving, it makes an amazing difference.
This was my thought when I read what others were saying, but since there has NEVER been a problem finding my veins, I didn't really think about it.
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The worst thing you can do is sit down and announce "You only get ONE CHANCE!" Great, thanks a lot for the extra pressure that I didn't need, now that I have to wear non-latex gloves to even try to find your veins, meaning I might as well have oven mitts on, and now I get ONE CHANCE, god forbid I miss, then I have to go pull someone else away from what they're trying to do to get ONE CHANCE, and god really forbid they miss..... You're not the only patient here today, and chances are your veins are nowhere near the worst ones we're going to have today, and the word is already going around that you're going to be a prima donna pain-in-the-ass. What you could do is say, nicely, that your veins are small, could you please have someone experienced? Work with us, encourage us, don't jinx us from the get-go, and hostility will get you nowhere.
I do understand what you are saying here, but guess what? You are still only getting one chance. Since my health has declined and I developed diabetes, I have had more blood draws and IVs' than I care to count. Over time, and with some very good people doing the job, I've learned what works. On me. My old doctor (sadly not in my insurance anymore) had a lab tech in house. First meeting, I explained about the anxiety attacks, and how it has been figured out how to keep them within manageable range during a blood draw. She was great, and I miss her. You know why? Because she actually LISTENED to what I had to say.
I really don't care how nervous you (general blood/IV needle sticking you) are, how new you are, how experienced or how good you THINK you are at doing the job. IVs' and blood draws need to be done on my hands, because after many bad experiences, that is where it was discovered that my anxiety stays manageable, the veins are easy to get to. Want to know how many times after I CALMLY explain that a nurse tells me that the hand hurts more? No offense, but I tell them from the start why it needs to be done that way.
If you TOUCH my arm at the inner elbow for a medical procedure, an anxiety attack will instantly escalate beyond manageable control. Want to guess how many nurses, AFTER an explanation, still think they are going to look there?
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A little secret....we probably feel worse when we miss than you do. Shoving things into veins isn't always easy because we work "blind", mostly by touch and feel, and sometimes by gut feeling. And now we have to try to feel with gloves on. Despite the "vampire" label given to us by so many, we really don't like causing pain. Being new and inexperienced at doing it can be terrifying. Having your confidence blown by mean or condescending patients (who, in all fairness, are also frightened) can pretty much guarantee them missing the vein and having to call someone else to try, who is also going to be mean and condescending to them for not getting the job done. Ugh, brings back traumatic memories, lol.
As a lab technician, you are likely drawing blood more than the nurses. As I have said, the tech who used to do my blood was fantastic. But that was mainly because she listened to what me, the patient, the one who knows the body she is sticking the best had to say.
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Oh, you're "deathly afraid of needles". *yawn*, you and everyone else. We're still not impressed, but if everyone who said that over the years would give us a dollar, combined with the dollars from each one who called us "vampires", we could be retired on an island by now.
Actually, I'm not "deathly afraid of needles." IVs' and blood draws bring on serious anxiety attacks for another reason. I also have some serious chronic pain issues and when my meds are not properly regulated, I doubt you can imagine the pain those sticks cause. By the way, when I say "anxiety escalates to an unmanageable level," I mean that you might find yourself getting hit, so it really is best to listen when I tell you how that can be avoided. If you know much about managing anxiety attacks without medication (which I have learned to do for the most part over 20 some odd years), it is an exhausting and difficult thing to do. The last thing I need is some nurse on a head trip thinking she knows my body better than I do.
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I have never heard of calling an anesthetist or anesthesiologist away from their duties to come and start a routine IV, unless they absolutely had nothing else to do and it was in the immediate pre-op area on pre-surgical patients. Hospitals I've worked in would highly frown on it. If I'm about to be under his/her care as an unconscious surgical patient, I'd kinda like to know that I had their undivided attention and that they were not distracted by someone who's afraid of getting stuck. Let's face it, IV's hurt like hell going in, but only for a few seconds. Unlike phlebotomy needles, the angiocaths are big and they're dull, they don't slip right in like the super-sharp needles do. It fucking hurts. Numbing cream is great if you can get it, but sometimes, you just have to suck it up, grit your teeth, and tough it out.
And just for the record, phlebotomists usually don't start IV's, they're not trained for that, they draw blood for testing. Usually it's the nursing staff, the IV team, which is nursing staff, diagnostic imaging techs, and doctors who do it. And possibly some others I didn't think of, but probably not any phlebotomists.
I've never heard of this either, but I will, right from the start tell them that they need to have the person who is most experienced and best at this, not in years, but in comments from patients. It makes life easy for everyone.
I was in the ER last week with more kidney trouble. I explained to the nurse everything she needed to know, as well as telling her that usually, my right hand is better because it just seems to have a straighter vein. Told her to use a smaller catheter/canula to avoid problems. She didn't listen to anything except using my right hand. Ended up digging around, twisting, trying to get the thing in. This seemed to last about thirty second, althoug it was likely half that. She was told to stop. Another nurse was called in, had to go in my left hand, in a bad spot. You know what though? She got it in first try. Hurt like hell because my meds are off at the moment, but it was a lot better than the idiot digging around.
For the record, a patient doesn't really care about your day, your stress, your nerves. All a patient cares about is having someone who actually knows what they are doing and listens.
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RE: IV's and dehydration - 
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