Advice needed asap please. Your best tips for getting blood out of unwilling veins! Nurse coming in an hour.

[IncompleteSenten]

I need regular blood tests. Among my many, many health problems I have heart failure and chronic kidney disease. I'm housebound and the nurses come to me to take blood.
They rarely get any but my potassium is abnormally high which the GP says is dangerous given my situation and they need to check it.

I drink as much water as I can possibly manage, I use a wheat bag on my arm and hand. When they have no luck with my arm they have a go at the back of my hand.

Is there anything else at all I can try? I do the things they suggest and out of the last 5 times they've been they got blood once and it wasn't enough to do the tests they needed to do.

They were here yesterday and got nothing after trying 3 places. They'll be here at about 11 to try again

Keeping warm, no tight clothing so no tight shoulder straps etc helps.
They can also take it from near your ankle... that's where they got mine when they struggled - but thatbwas in a hospital setting.

Butterfly needle in the back of the hand works well and is less painful than the arm.

They got it first time!
I went upstairs where it's warmer, I drank a fuckton of water and I did windmills before they came 🤣 I kept my arm dangling down from when they knocked to whe they got upstairs and they brought a lovely woman they called a specialist.
I suspect that last bit was as much a factor as the rest of it 🤣

They always use a butterfly and today was the same.

I bloody hate needles so it's sods law they always have trouble. I had to have 3 months CBT years and years back to teach me how to manage my phobia but I can only take so much before I'm struggling.

Came on to say drink water, but I see you are doing that. I have very narrow veins and have to have a butterfly needle or cannula. There's only one place where blood exits my body willingly, and that's in the crook of my right elbow so I tend to insist on that place only, and it works well most of the time. Good luck.

Glad it went well op 😊

This!

You need an experienced "expert" to take the blood, not a random HCA/receptionist who's taken a short course.

My OH needs regular blood tests and regular infusions for his long term cancer treatments (5 years and counting) with either a blood test or canula needed for infusion at least weekly. His veins are collapsing because of the sheer amount of tests/canula's he's needed.

There's barely anyone who can do it. We've found a particular nurse at the GP surgery who can take his blood, so we always book with her - he's tried all the others and they can't do it. Even at the hospital phlebotomy dept, they can't do a blood test and the "mobile" phlebotomists can't do it either. At the oncology dept, there's one particular cancer specialist nurse who can do it, the others have tried and can't. It makes appointment making hard as they have to check the staff rota to check who's on duty on particular days.

The nurse at the GP practice and the specialist cancer nurse (the only two who can do it) keep trying with other people, i.e. trainees, but they always give up as no one else can do it. I don't think the trainees, HCAs and receptionists get enough training - the ones who can do it have been doing it for decades and are generally much older - OH really worries that they're both close to retirement age!!

Our top tips are exercise, drinking water, and keeping very warm (and I mean VERY warm, i.e. wearing a thick coat over a thick fleece over a top/trousers, over full body thermal underwear) - uncomfortably hot and sweaty but it gets the blood pumping!

I have really difficult veins. Drinking tons of water helps however I have to have the special nurse that uses the needle & syringe method

@user1497207191 can't he get a picc line in? That's what I have.

It's a lot about the nurse. Note her name and request her in future!
I thought I had unwilling veins for years after moving away from childhood home where nurse got it on first... Turns out there are others who can do it... And many who can't. Nothing personal against nurses but as someone with fear of needles I am still bemused how many have issues with blood taking, once you find the good one, you always go to them. No more tears (like it was embarrassing tearing up as an adult...) and 5 holes and bruises.

I was going to suggest seeing if a phlebotomist (sp?) could come out.

They're the only ones who can get blood out of me on the first attempt - I have awkward veins apparently.

DD has very narrow veins. Nurses and then doctors in hospital have been known to give up on her, helped they knew exactly why she was an emergency admission for operation.

The surgeon has had to take over from anesthetic twice before an operation to get needle in, and both have had to constantly tap different parts of her body to help on the occasion I was present.

pasteloblong · Today 10:35

Butterfly needle in the back of the hand works well and is less painful than the arm.

I took my daughter for a blood test in November and she was really anxious and after several tries in each arm, the nurse suggested her hand and it worked first time. She's now not worried about future ones.

OP nice to hear that you had an easy win!

Yay! I'm pleased things worked out for you.