Dr has my blood drawn every 3-4 months for lab work.
Sorry, @tRidiot been working this morning, taking blood and screwing innocent people, don't ya know? lol
J/K.
All depends on health conditions. I don't know why you have $500 worth of labwork, all depends on medical conditions. Here are some guidelines I tell my folks:
If you have diabetes and are on meds for it, count on every 3 months. This is the standard of care and includes an A1c, lipids, CBC (blood count) and CMP (electrolytes, kidney and liver function). We do an A1c fingerstick in office, it is $44 or so. The other 3 are a grand total of $120 or so through our company. A VERY few diabetics I might see every 6 months if they are well-controlled and only on 1 or 2 meds. Pretty limited few, though.
If you are on multiple meds like for blood pressure and cholesterol, you're probably going to be on that same 3 month schedule. We have to keep an eye on kidney and liver function and cholesterol will be at least every 6 months if you have a history of it being elevated. With diabetics, it's every 3 months, elevated or not.
If you are on 1 BP med and 1 cholesterol med, we MIGHT say once a year. Maybe. If you're very well controlled with no other significant health issues.
Prostate - with men over 50, we check this annually. Screening for prostate cancer. This test is about $175 through our company.
Thyroid, if you're on meds, we usually check the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) level once a year to see if we need to adjust your medication level, or more frequently as it may relate to symptoms.
And no, for those curious, we get ZERO dollars for ordering labs these days. From any insurance, any company, no kickbacks, no percentage of labs, we don't charge for lab draws, etc. The company that does the labs keeps an employee in our office, we give them space which we could be renting to someone else, but it is simply something we keep in-house as a convenience for our patients. It nets us nothing, but actually does increase our overhead, and again, we could be leasing that space - we have had a number of other offers.
So... if from what I am reading you have only BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia), you have annual labs, it would include if you are on meds for it, in my office, probably CBC, CMP and PSA, which is a grand total of about $230, and if you have obesity or smoking or other risk factors, I'd want to do a lipid level for another $60. And once a year sounds about right.
I have people who don't even want to come be seen and checked up on once a year - but want their medicine refilled in spite. Sorry. You need my services (i.e., my medical license to prescribe your medicine), I need to see you and check your labs on a regular and appropriate schedule (somewhat as above) to make sure the meds I'm prescribing aren't screwing up your system, or something we aren't monitoring isn't killing you.
Because as soon as your lawyer finds out we weren't monitoring things to catch that problem you've come up with, I'll be getting served -count on it.
J/K.
All depends on health conditions. I don't know why you have $500 worth of labwork, all depends on medical conditions. Here are some guidelines I tell my folks:
If you have diabetes and are on meds for it, count on every 3 months. This is the standard of care and includes an A1c, lipids, CBC (blood count) and CMP (electrolytes, kidney and liver function). We do an A1c fingerstick in office, it is $44 or so. The other 3 are a grand total of $120 or so through our company. A VERY few diabetics I might see every 6 months if they are well-controlled and only on 1 or 2 meds. Pretty limited few, though.
If you are on multiple meds like for blood pressure and cholesterol, you're probably going to be on that same 3 month schedule. We have to keep an eye on kidney and liver function and cholesterol will be at least every 6 months if you have a history of it being elevated. With diabetics, it's every 3 months, elevated or not.
If you are on 1 BP med and 1 cholesterol med, we MIGHT say once a year. Maybe. If you're very well controlled with no other significant health issues.
Prostate - with men over 50, we check this annually. Screening for prostate cancer. This test is about $175 through our company.
Thyroid, if you're on meds, we usually check the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) level once a year to see if we need to adjust your medication level, or more frequently as it may relate to symptoms.
And no, for those curious, we get ZERO dollars for ordering labs these days. From any insurance, any company, no kickbacks, no percentage of labs, we don't charge for lab draws, etc. The company that does the labs keeps an employee in our office, we give them space which we could be renting to someone else, but it is simply something we keep in-house as a convenience for our patients. It nets us nothing, but actually does increase our overhead, and again, we could be leasing that space - we have had a number of other offers.
So... if from what I am reading you have only BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia), you have annual labs, it would include if you are on meds for it, in my office, probably CBC, CMP and PSA, which is a grand total of about $230, and if you have obesity or smoking or other risk factors, I'd want to do a lipid level for another $60. And once a year sounds about right.
I have people who don't even want to come be seen and checked up on once a year - but want their medicine refilled in spite. Sorry. You need my services (i.e., my medical license to prescribe your medicine), I need to see you and check your labs on a regular and appropriate schedule (somewhat as above) to make sure the meds I'm prescribing aren't screwing up your system, or something we aren't monitoring isn't killing you.
Because as soon as your lawyer finds out we weren't monitoring things to catch that problem you've come up with, I'll be getting served -count on it.
Two things stood out on the day of the blood draw: the streets were flooded from a three-day downpour (not common in my desert town), and the needle hurt a lot more than usual.
Like most of us, I'd been stuck dozens of times in my life without protest, but this time I glared at the offending instrument and said to the technician: "Ow, ow, ow! Are you using a really big needle?"
The phlebotomist assured me everything was fine: "Maybe a little alcohol got in there and made it sting."
I drove home through the cloudburst and, a few hours later, peeled off the pressure bandage on my arm. Blood was still oozing from the puncture site. I put on a fresh Band-Aid and didn't think anything of it. It was only a blood draw.
In the following days my right arm throbbed as if it had been tenderized with a baseball bat. I held a pen clumsily, and my notes took on a drunken cast. I didn't know it at the time, but my penmanship was destined to get much worse.
Over the next months the pain eased if I rested my arm, but it always came back: an aching in the inner elbow, numbness in my little finger and a sensation of cold in my hand. Eventually I had to give up swimming laps, and I could type and drive only in sprints. I made forays to doctors to find out what was wrong — with inconclusive results — all the while thinking this was a temporary injury and it had to get better.
But a year later I couldn't address an envelope without pain and needed help cutting a waffle. The most common and most seemingly harmless invasive procedure in medicine is not always harmless, I had discovered.
There are no studies showing how often patients are hurt during routine blood draws, but a 1996 study of blood donors (a larger needle is used in blood donation than in routine venipuncture) found that 1 in 6,300 donors suffered a nerve injury.
Phlebotomy-related injuries have become common enough in recent years that there are now specialists who make a living teaching health care providers how to avoid lawsuits provoked by the procedure. (A lawsuit I filed as a result of my own injury was eventually resolved.)
Photo
Credit Leigh Wells
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, says the risks of the procedure include nerve injuries and chronic pain syndromes that can render you disabled for life. He likes to warn patients that some technicians have only a weekend of training — practicing on a dummy arm on Saturday and sticking your vein on Monday.
California, where I live, is the only state where phlebotomists must be licensed (although not the case at the time of my blood draw three years ago). But even then things can go wrong. After all, we're talking about hard steel entering soft flesh in an area of the body — the inner arm — rich in nerves and arteries.
If something does go wrong, patients have an added problem: very few health care providers have ever heard of phlebotomy injuries.
I eventually found an arm surgeon, Dr. Trevor Lynch at the Southern California Orthopedic Institute, who was able to explain my pain: the needle had gone through my vein and caused dangerous but invisible bleeding into my arm.
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
Like most of us, I'd been stuck dozens of times in my life without protest, but this time I glared at the offending instrument and said to the technician: "Ow, ow, ow! Are you using a really big needle?"
The phlebotomist assured me everything was fine: "Maybe a little alcohol got in there and made it sting."
I drove home through the cloudburst and, a few hours later, peeled off the pressure bandage on my arm. Blood was still oozing from the puncture site. I put on a fresh Band-Aid and didn't think anything of it. It was only a blood draw.
In the following days my right arm throbbed as if it had been tenderized with a baseball bat. I held a pen clumsily, and my notes took on a drunken cast. I didn't know it at the time, but my penmanship was destined to get much worse.
Over the next months the pain eased if I rested my arm, but it always came back: an aching in the inner elbow, numbness in my little finger and a sensation of cold in my hand. Eventually I had to give up swimming laps, and I could type and drive only in sprints. I made forays to doctors to find out what was wrong — with inconclusive results — all the while thinking this was a temporary injury and it had to get better.
But a year later I couldn't address an envelope without pain and needed help cutting a waffle. The most common and most seemingly harmless invasive procedure in medicine is not always harmless, I had discovered.
There are no studies showing how often patients are hurt during routine blood draws, but a 1996 study of blood donors (a larger needle is used in blood donation than in routine venipuncture) found that 1 in 6,300 donors suffered a nerve injury.
Phlebotomy-related injuries have become common enough in recent years that there are now specialists who make a living teaching health care providers how to avoid lawsuits provoked by the procedure. (A lawsuit I filed as a result of my own injury was eventually resolved.)
Photo
Credit Leigh Wells
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, says the risks of the procedure include nerve injuries and chronic pain syndromes that can render you disabled for life. He likes to warn patients that some technicians have only a weekend of training — practicing on a dummy arm on Saturday and sticking your vein on Monday.
California, where I live, is the only state where phlebotomists must be licensed (although not the case at the time of my blood draw three years ago). But even then things can go wrong. After all, we're talking about hard steel entering soft flesh in an area of the body — the inner arm — rich in nerves and arteries.
If something does go wrong, patients have an added problem: very few health care providers have ever heard of phlebotomy injuries.
I eventually found an arm surgeon, Dr. Trevor Lynch at the Southern California Orthopedic Institute, who was able to explain my pain: the needle had gone through my vein and caused dangerous but invisible bleeding into my arm.
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
'
ADVERTISEMENT
Over the next months the pain eased if I rested my arm, but it always came back: an aching in the inner elbow, numbness in my little finger and a sensation of cold in my hand. Eventually I had to give up swimming laps, and I could type and drive only in sprints. I made forays to doctors to find out what was wrong — with inconclusive results — all the while thinking this was a temporary injury and it had to get better.
But a year later I couldn't address an envelope without pain and needed help cutting a waffle. The most common and most seemingly harmless invasive procedure in medicine is not always harmless, I had discovered.
There are no studies showing how often patients are hurt during routine blood draws, but a 1996 study of blood donors (a larger needle is used in blood donation than in routine venipuncture) found that 1 in 6,300 donors suffered a nerve injury.
Phlebotomy-related injuries have become common enough in recent years that there are now specialists who make a living teaching health care providers how to avoid lawsuits provoked by the procedure. (A lawsuit I filed as a result of my own injury was eventually resolved.)
Photo
Credit Leigh Wells
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, says the risks of the procedure include nerve injuries and chronic pain syndromes that can render you disabled for life. He likes to warn patients that some technicians have only a weekend of training — practicing on a dummy arm on Saturday and sticking your vein on Monday.
California, where I live, is the only state where phlebotomists must be licensed (although not the case at the time of my blood draw three years ago). But even then things can go wrong. After all, we're talking about hard steel entering soft flesh in an area of the body — the inner arm — rich in nerves and arteries.
If something does go wrong, patients have an added problem: very few health care providers have ever heard of phlebotomy injuries.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
Credit Leigh Wells
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, says the risks of the procedure include nerve injuries and chronic pain syndromes that can render you disabled for life. He likes to warn patients that some technicians have only a weekend of training — practicing on a dummy arm on Saturday and sticking your vein on Monday.
California, where I live, is the only state where phlebotomists must be licensed (although not the case at the time of my blood draw three years ago). But even then things can go wrong. After all, we're talking about hard steel entering soft flesh in an area of the body — the inner arm — rich in nerves and arteries.
If something does go wrong, patients have an added problem: very few health care providers have ever heard of phlebotomy injuries.
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I eventually found an arm surgeon, Dr. Trevor Lynch at the Southern California Orthopedic Institute, who was able to explain my pain: the needle had gone through my vein and caused dangerous but invisible bleeding into my arm.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply tRidiot.I tried to edit out some of the above post that repeated itself without luck.Anyway the reason for this thread is I went through a lot of pain and nerve damage after a phlebotomist messed me up when taking my blood.It was similar to the pain after sugery but it lasted for months instead of a few days.I do understand the reason the Doctor needs to cover himself so he doesn't get sued.Just not sure it is worth risking having another bad phlebotomist injure me or just get use to whizzing 6 or 7 times a night without the meds to control the bph.
Interesting.
I don't have insurance so I go to a clinic that has an APRN as the care provider. They normally schedule me for every three months and check my A1C each time but only draw blood once a year. Just in the last year they have changed my appointments to once every six months.
Daayyyyuuummm, @sedona, now you kinda got me skeered! I've donated blood for years and, yep, them needles are a lot bigger. Never thought much about it. My PCP normally did blood work once a year, but now that I've got a cardiologist involved, he lets the heart doc order the blood work. He didn't like some of the numbers having to do with kidney function on my last visit, so he asked me to adjust the frequency on one of my meds and ordered more blood work after sixty days. I hope this doesn't become the routine! Point being, if I had not been getting regular blood work, those kidney numbers might have gone unnoticed. I'm hoping it irons itself out!
GEE WIZZ guys I feel for all of you that go through horrible ordeals and must take meds.
Screw them doctors I do not want to visit them unless parts are falling off of me that duct tape or superglue or red glowing steel can't fix.
But I am only 51 maybe if I get older I will change my mind.
Hate the doctor visit Have not been in a few years ..knock on wood.
Screw them doctors I do not want to visit them unless parts are falling off of me that duct tape or superglue or red glowing steel can't fix.
But I am only 51 maybe if I get older I will change my mind.
Hate the doctor visit Have not been in a few years ..knock on wood.
Two things stood out on the day of the blood draw: the streets were flooded from a three-day downpour (not common in my desert town), and the needle hurt a lot more than usual.
Like most of us, I'd been stuck dozens of times in my life without protest, but this time I glared at the offending instrument and said to the technician: "Ow, ow, ow! Are you using a really big needle?"
The phlebotomist assured me everything was fine: "Maybe a little alcohol got in there and made it sting."
I drove home through the cloudburst and, a few hours later, peeled off the pressure bandage on my arm. Blood was still oozing from the puncture site. I put on a fresh Band-Aid and didn't think anything of it. It was only a blood draw.
In the following days my right arm throbbed as if it had been tenderized with a baseball bat. I held a pen clumsily, and my notes took on a drunken cast. I didn't know it at the time, but my penmanship was destined to get much worse.
Over the next months the pain eased if I rested my arm, but it always came back: an aching in the inner elbow, numbness in my little finger and a sensation of cold in my hand. Eventually I had to give up swimming laps, and I could type and drive only in sprints. I made forays to doctors to find out what was wrong — with inconclusive results — all the while thinking this was a temporary injury and it had to get better.
But a year later I couldn't address an envelope without pain and needed help cutting a waffle. The most common and most seemingly harmless invasive procedure in medicine is not always harmless, I had discovered.
There are no studies showing how often patients are hurt during routine blood draws, but a 1996 study of blood donors (a larger needle is used in blood donation than in routine venipuncture) found that 1 in 6,300 donors suffered a nerve injury.
Phlebotomy-related injuries have become common enough in recent years that there are now specialists who make a living teaching health care providers how to avoid lawsuits provoked by the procedure. (A lawsuit I filed as a result of my own injury was eventually resolved.)
Photo
Credit Leigh Wells
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, says the risks of the procedure include nerve injuries and chronic pain syndromes that can render you disabled for life. He likes to warn patients that some technicians have only a weekend of training — practicing on a dummy arm on Saturday and sticking your vein on Monday.
California, where I live, is the only state where phlebotomists must be licensed (although not the case at the time of my blood draw three years ago). But even then things can go wrong. After all, we're talking about hard steel entering soft flesh in an area of the body — the inner arm — rich in nerves and arteries.
If something does go wrong, patients have an added problem: very few health care providers have ever heard of phlebotomy injuries.
I eventually found an arm surgeon, Dr. Trevor Lynch at the Southern California Orthopedic Institute, who was able to explain my pain: the needle had gone through my vein and caused dangerous but invisible bleeding into my arm.
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
I eventually found an arm surgeon, Dr. Trevor Lynch at the Southern California Orthopedic Institute, who was able to explain my pain: the needle had gone through my vein and caused dangerous but invisible bleeding into my arm.
'
ADVERTISEMENT
Over the next months the pain eased if I rested my arm, but it always came back: an aching in the inner elbow, numbness in my little finger and a sensation of cold in my hand. Eventually I had to give up swimming laps, and I could type and drive only in sprints. I made forays to doctors to find out what was wrong — with inconclusive results — all the while thinking this was a temporary injury and it had to get better.
But a year later I couldn't address an envelope without pain and needed help cutting a waffle. The most common and most seemingly harmless invasive procedure in medicine is not always harmless, I had discovered.
There are no studies showing how often patients are hurt during routine blood draws, but a 1996 study of blood donors (a larger needle is used in blood donation than in routine venipuncture) found that 1 in 6,300 donors suffered a nerve injury.
Phlebotomy-related injuries have become common enough in recent years that there are now specialists who make a living teaching health care providers how to avoid lawsuits provoked by the procedure. (A lawsuit I filed as a result of my own injury was eventually resolved.)
Photo
Credit Leigh Wells
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, says the risks of the procedure include nerve injuries and chronic pain syndromes that can render you disabled for life. He likes to warn patients that some technicians have only a weekend of training — practicing on a dummy arm on Saturday and sticking your vein on Monday.
California, where I live, is the only state where phlebotomists must be licensed (although not the case at the time of my blood draw three years ago). But even then things can go wrong. After all, we're talking about hard steel entering soft flesh in an area of the body — the inner arm — rich in nerves and arteries.
If something does go wrong, patients have an added problem: very few health care providers have ever heard of phlebotomy injuries.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
Credit Leigh Wells
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, says the risks of the procedure include nerve injuries and chronic pain syndromes that can render you disabled for life. He likes to warn patients that some technicians have only a weekend of training — practicing on a dummy arm on Saturday and sticking your vein on Monday.
California, where I live, is the only state where phlebotomists must be licensed (although not the case at the time of my blood draw three years ago). But even then things can go wrong. After all, we're talking about hard steel entering soft flesh in an area of the body — the inner arm — rich in nerves and arteries.
If something does go wrong, patients have an added problem: very few health care providers have ever heard of phlebotomy injuries.
Newsletter Sign Up
Continue reading the main story
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Get the best of Well, with the latest on health, fitness and nutrition, delivered to your inbox every week.
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I eventually found an arm surgeon, Dr. Trevor Lynch at the Southern California Orthopedic Institute, who was able to explain my pain: the needle had gone through my vein and caused dangerous but invisible bleeding into my arm.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
(Another common injury is caused by a direct hit to a nerve, producing an electric shock feeling in your arm or hand.)
Dr. Lynch recommended surgery to prevent permanent loss of the use of my arm, as well as a condition called "claw hand" that causes your digits to curl up like a sea anemone. Seeing that my little finger was already starting its inward curl, I made the appointment.
After surgery to repair damage to my ulnar nerve, tendon and bone, I was hooked up to two pain pumps and lived for months on a diet of pain pills and patches.
Reduced to taking notes and eating with my clumsy left hand, I routinely watched in childish frustration as food dribbled off my fork.
Today, I'm back to swimming laps, but my elbow aches if I type for too long or curry the dog with vigor. I've become an evangelist on the potential dangers of phlebotomy, rolling up my sleeve at every opportunity to display my six-inch scar and telling people to take unusual pain or prolonged bleeding at the time of a blood draw seriously.
If you think you've been injured, the first rule is to have the technician remove the needle immediately. Then seek help relentlessly.
As Dr. Ernst says, "If a person acts quickly and goes to the right doctor — a lot of ifs here — you can limit the damage."
Was at St John's South, Broken Arrow this AM with MIL in the ER. The lady taking blood from our MIL couldn't hit it after two tries. She called for backup and he hit it first time. Similar to a ruptured tendon in my arm surgery where a nurse tried to find a vein and couldn't. Called someone else and it was done. The only time I've had an issue.
That has to be a tough call for the person taking the blood to make sure veins are good. In our case, I applaud the nurse for recognizing she needed someone more experienced. Have zero issues with what went on with MIL or my personal circumstances.
They draw our blood yearly for the PHA at work.
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