I had a scare today. I was having a weird crampy pressure (I’m 30 weeks pregnant), my book said to call the doctor, I did, they said go to the hospital just in case. Anyway, turned out they couldn’t find anything wrong with me or the baby. Sat around the hospital for four hours or so to find that out. What annoys me is that when I had blood drawn, they took it out of the same arm that I had the blood pressure cuff on. So, everytime the machine took my blood pressure after that, it was squeezing blood out of the puncture in my vein. So now I have a lovely huge painful lump on the back of my hand, that is starting to bruise horribly. Isn’t this a basic thing that phlebotomists are taught? Don’t take the blood out of the arm with the cuff on it?
According to this page:
Sorry, it looks like that one you described is an idiot. Thanks for the new word, though, MinniePurl.
In ten or so weeks, when you have been through the physical challenges of having a baby, you will totally have forgotten about one lousy little bloodtest that gave you a bit of a lump and a bruise on your arm.
Just sayin’.
This really makes me want to grow up and have a kid someday.
It can’t be THAT bad, can it?
It’s worse. Much worse.
And to the OP…yeah, they should have taken blood out of the other arm. But YOU should have spoken up about it, too. Don’t just sit back and accept care that you are unsure about, or that you are not comfortable with. It would be nice if medical personnel never made mistakes, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Nobody is going to care as much about your wellbeing as YOU, so do ask what medicines you’re being given and about your treatment.
I didn’t think about it at the time, I was a bit more worried about whether or not I was in pre-term labor. It didn’t occur to me until after she left, and the cuff starting inflating, causing a pain in the back of my hand. (I always have them take blood from the back of my hand, since otherwise they stick me 4 or more times.)
Do most people even realize that blood is supposed to be taken from the opposite arm? The only way I knew that was that at some point I had been visiting my late mother in the hospital and seen the phlebotomist ask her “Which arm is your cuff on?” before they drew blood. And I think, like me, most people are going to be a bit distracted if they are in the hospital with a problem (or potential problem) serious enough to be hooked up to a blood pressure cuff and other monitors.
On a lighter note, I discovered my baby HATES the fetal monitor. From the minute they put it on, he was kicking directly at it, and he kept moving away from it so his heartbeat couldn’t be detected. Not born yet and already obstinate.
First off, why did she draw from the back of your hand? Most lab personel are taught to use the hand, which is usually more painful, only if a source in the arm is unavailable(for instance if you have an IV in one hand, a cast on the other…draws are never made above an IV and the cast is a physical barrier). Unfortunately for you, many hospitals and med centers have resorted to hiring untrained personel as phlebotomists(due to shortages) and it sounds like this may have been what you got. It’s not an absolute rule that you dont draw from an arm with a cuff on it, however. It sounds like she didn’t stick around long enough and apply direct pressure/bandage the site well enough,that usually is enough to cause a hematoma. But yeah, common sense would tell me to draw from your free arm, just for the fact that I wouldn’t have to remove the cuff.
Whenever I have blood drawn, I insist that they take it out of the back of my hand. Apparently the veins in my arms are very deceptive. For a long time, I would tell them I’m hard to stick. They’d take a look at my arm, and say “Oh no, your veins look great!” They would them proceed to miss, repeatedly. Then they start getting really rough (an ER nurse once jabbed me so hard trying to take blood that blood squirted all over him, and ran down my arm onto the floor). Or they start that horrible thing where they start slicing around in your arm with the needle, which I absolutely HATE because it hurts so damn much. When I had surgery in December 2002, it took two nurses 4 tries to start my IV, leaving me with four big bruises all over my arms. And these were pre-op nurses in the biggest, busiest hospital in Denver, so I would imagine they were fairly experienced at starting IVs. I’m needle-phobic, so being repeatedly stuck is quite upsetting to me. I’ve got great big veins on the back of my hand-- they’d have to be blind to miss them. I’d rather just have one more painful stick in the back of my hand than deal with them butchering my arms.
I probably would’ve switched the cuff during a low-pressure interlude, but that’s just me.
Couldn’t. The blood pressure monitor was on one side of the bed, and the tubes weren’t long enough to reach to the other side.
Did the phlebotomist even look at the veins you had in your other arm? What I do when I take blood or start an IV is look around for the best vein, then do a venipuncture on that. Maybe your best veins were in that arm.
Having your blood drawn from the same arm that your blood pressure is being taken isn’t a big deal. The nurse probably should’ve put a heavier bandaid on it or something. Now if you had a running IV in that arm, you shouldn’t take a BP in that arm or it might hurt the vein with the IV catheter in it.
I’ve used the b/p cuff as a tourniquet to find a vein and I’ve drawn blood from a hand lots of times, especially on a woman I’m triaging for cramps. I draw the blood and leave a saline lock in if I suspect we’ll admit her for labor or if I think she’s dehydrated. That saves her another stick. We keep our triaged moms for a minimum of 4 hours is she has had any trauma or if she is having contractions. I do take the b/p on the opposite arm if there’s an IV running in and if the machine won’t reach I swap out the b/p cuff with one that has a longer line. You are better off having a nurse draw you than a phlebotomist—they do so many draws that you getting a nasty bruise just doesn’t seem like any type of crisis to them. Neither is your bleeding a little from a pucture site.
On a more personal note, I’m glad you and baby are okay.
Cyn, OB/GYN RN