Oh my indeed, and a Happy Monday morning to you, dear readers,
Life around the Digmann house has been quite busy. Maybe not for me (as I am a cat), but surely for Mumma and Dan.
As you may have read in Mumma’s post last week, she hopes to start a new therapy, Retuximab, to treat her Multiple Sclerosis. In order to do that, she needed to have an M.R.I. to establish a baseline of how that stupid disease has been treating her. Of course nothing ever is as simple as that.
MS patients often need to have an M.R.I. with contrast which enhances the scan’s images. The contrast can be administered through an IV (i.e. the infusion liquid goes directly into the vein), and when Mumma was having her M.R.I., her veins were not cooperating.
The nurses could not easily find a plump, receptive vein to use for the IV. None of her veins would pop to the surface of the skin. And there were a few frustrating, time-consuming failed attempts but after three tries, the nurse was able to successfully start the contrast for this important test.
Post her pincushionesque experience, Mumma read an article that offered tips to boost veins for IVs. Here are four great tips:
I. Stay hydrated and warm. Make sure you drink plenty of fluids and limit the amount of caffeine you drink, as this only dehydrates veins. Also, if you are cold, your veins will constrict and be much more difficult to find.
II. Tell the doctor or nurse if you know a certain site is not productive, rather than let them try and be unsuccessful, and ask them to use the smallest needle possible.
III. Relax and make sure you are comfortable; don’t look at the needle, it may be an ‘old nurses’ tale but some say that veins retract when a patient watches, even if you think it doesn’t bother you.
IV. Finally, dangling your arm over the edge of the bed/chair for ten minutes beforehand will allow gravity to increase blood flow to the limb.
Mumma certainly will remember all of those.
And about that paper…
Hope you enjoyed my little update.
Have a great week, and remember, living involves tearing up one rough draft after another.
Ugh. I just had bloodwork done at one of those Qwest places a couple of days ago. The poor woman in front of me had small veins or some other kind of problem with her veins, and they worked on her for fifteen minutes before they gave up. She left to go drink a bunch of water to try and puff up her veins.
I’ve never had a problem: they always get my veins first try to draw blood, IVs, etc., and I truly feel sorry for anyone that does have small/collapsed/problematic veins.
And that goes double for you Jennifer. ; )
Thanks for your comment, Noodle.
Yes, having small veins is an inconvenience. Puffing them up by drinking more H2O is smart idea, could save some hassle!!
Good thing Coop doesn’t have to worry about this…oh, to be a cat 😉