Swollen veins on both hands from cannulas after surgery normal?

[penguinsandpandas]

Had surgery yesterday for fibroid resection / hysteroscopy / biopsy under general and had to have three cannulas. The first two on the hands have swollen around 1 inch ish solid blue, no pain. They have given me ibuprofen for 3 days, they said I had excess fluid. Also gave me oxygen for several others but otherwise went perfectly.

Is the swelling safe to leave - they saw it and said about ibuprofen for 3 days but how long does it take to go down. Not worsening but not improving. Thanks for any help. What causes this too? It's nothing to do with lungs is it as I wondering about scuba diving? Not in the next week though!

Maybe you have phlebitis. I tend to get this when I have cannulas though I also get pain and bruising with the swelling. In my case the veins end up going hard and taking months to go back to normal. Just one of those things that an happen

Thanks very much. Just looked that up and does look similar. It does look like bruising, well like a vein has spread to an inch wide in all directions and up a few mm on both hands. No pain in hands.

Did you have to have 3 cannulas because the first 2 didn't go in properly? Bruising/small haematomas are not uncommon, particularly when there's been difficulty inserting a cannula and so long as they're not getting bigger/painful/restricting movement they should just disappear gradually by themselves. Not sure where the 'excess fluid' idea came from - that wouldn't cause blue discolouration around the veins. (DOI: I'm an anaesthetist)

I'm not entirely sure what happened as I had a general. I got the impression the cannulas went in fine but then came out after the operation, maybe me moving my hand. I was kind of drifting in and out of sleep after the op and the lady asked if I felt sick and I said yes and she said you musnt be sick now it dangerous you have excess fluid we need to put a new cannula in though I wasn't very with it so maybe I misunderstood. They then gave me an injection I don't know what of and someone came down to put a third cannula in.

Was on oxygen for several hours though maybe normal. Thanks very much. I didn't get the impression they are worried about the big blue veins too much but wasn't sure why they would say I would have excess fluid, I have had an irregular kidney blood test and anaemia but otherwise bloods fine.