JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for July 21, 2012

I have what they call “rolling veins” that tends to give even the most seasoned nurse the same look on their face. IVs take no less than 5 sticks before they get it no matter what hospital I’m in. Ugh.

Have had some nurses I wanted to knock in the wall hurt so bad….others have done it on first try & couldn’t feel a thing.

I am a bad stick. Two good veins: left AC doesn’t hurt, right one does. As a venipuncture-certified technologist, I have to be good at hitting veins… But hate missing them!

She reminds me a golf announcer. “He hasn’t missed a putt from this distance for the past three days.”You know what happens next.

I’d think that a thin person would, in general, have “better” veins than one with fuller arms. My arms look like sticks, and my veins are big. However, with some phlebotomists I never feel a thing, but others are like “Nurse McStabby” (my daughter’s term). Maybe I’m overgeneralizing. . . .

The best IV I ever had, the nurse put a warm compress on the arm for 5 minutes beforehand.

I hate blood draws. I’ve had time where they had to get a second person to find the vein, and occasionally they have had to do it in the hand. Although the last time the person doing it was great and I didn’t feel a thing

Hubby and I toured a brand new hosptial w/open house at the lab they have a brand new hand held device that shows were the bloodvessels are on the body. Expensive machine. Doctor’s office could use that machine for patients.

Half the time when I have blood drawn, it has to come from my hand. I’m sure that, after her shift, the nurse goes home and puts on her dominatrix outfit to torture her husband.

I had one phlebotomist try to stick a needle in a blood clot after I told her no, you can’t go there, I have a blood clot there. She ignored me. Then she was brutal on the other arm. After that, every time I came to the lab (which was often then) I said I will NOT have my blood drawn by xxx. They honored that. (Soon after, the woman was gone.) My point being, you do have the right to say that someone who’s mean and bad at it cannot touch you again.

The first time I donated blood, the procedure was so bad, I never did it again for many years. Finally tried again, and since then I’ve donated 57 times – working on my 8th gallon.

I have deep veins, so whenever I have to draw blood it hurts sooo much!! I was even turned away from a plasma donation center once because it was too risky for me to have my veins opened up.

Friend of mine has veins so small and so hidden that she usually looks like a bad junkie when nurses try to put a needle into her.

Hey, Nicole, you might want to look into the possibility of type 3 Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

Sorry to hear about all the folks that had bad experiences. When I was working for Voc Rehab, I sent a client for a routine medical exam. He was a junkie in his 50’s. His veins were so far gone, and he raised such a stink when they ignored his request to take the blood out of some gosh-awful place like under his tongue or whatever, that the whole medical clinic banned all Voc Rehab clients from being sent there ever again. That was unfortunate, because they were a good clinic, and close. (This isn’t to say that any of you fine folks above are junkies!)

I feel like I’m much more evil. I have to do arterial sticks, and they are by no means pleasant. I prefer the ‘nicer’ aspects of my job which doesn’t involve me having to poke someone.

patients with invisible veins are the bane of all medical staff