Any NURSES able to answer my question? (Blood test related)

[Cakeandbake229]

I'm having a bit of a panic, I have just had a blood test for;

Bone
Hepatic
Thyroid function
Urea
B12
Folate assay
Fbc

3 letters with 3 different labels

I was just wondering whether it's normal to only have one blood test taken for all of the above?

My friend has just had similar blood tests and said she had to have 3? The nurse printed out the labels but I didn't look and now I'm worried that some may have been missed?

How many bottles did she fill?

When you take blood, you go on to put it in different tubes for different tests, hence the labels.

Just one small bottle! Only took 4 or 5 seconds

I'm a midwife, not a nurse, but we take a lot of bloods. I'd have expected 2 vials at a minimum for your list (possibly 3). One for bone, hepatic, thyroid and urea. One for FBC and folate. The different vials have different reagents in them; the blood tests rely on how the blood reacts with these specific reagents. I dont recall offhand which reagent is used for b12 as I don't test it very often - it might need a third bottle or might go in the FBC/folate one.

Oh - now, I have seen people take a single syringe of blood, rather than a vial, and then decant it into different vials. I see that more on hospital inpatients wards than in clinics, GPs surgeries etc. It's not best practice but some clinicians prefer it, and it doesn't affect the results.

No its normal to have blood taken once. They would take enough to fill 2 bottles that would be required for those blood tests. They test a sample for more than 1 thing and it's better to do it in one go than for you to need to have 2 or 3 needles.

Where I work we would usually take a purple top and yellow top bottle for those tests. Do you think she may have taken more and you didn't notice? You can switch bottles over very quickly. Don't worry about it. If any tests are missed whoever offered the tests should notice, or you can mention it. If anything you may be inconvenienced at having to go for another blood test.

Thank you everyone!!! Hopefully enough has been taken, I guess worst case scenario I will get them done again