: Difficulty extracting blood A little while ago, I had my blood drawn for lab work. They were only filling a small vial with it, but even so the nurse had a hard time getting enough blood to flow into the vial. What could

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

Getting needles into veins successfully and without damaging them is a difficult skill, and like most skills it has many factors influencing it, not the least of which is experience. With some people it's very easy. For example, athletes with minimal body fat and large, bulging veins are usually trivially easy, but the obese are usually difficult because their veins are hidden under layers of fat. And children and infants are another story altogether.

Possible reasons why that nurse had a hard time:

You have small veins
Your veins are anatomically deeper than normal
You are overweight
You are elderly and have fragile veins
Vein calcification
You have low blood pressure, making your veins small and hard to find
Dehydration
You have dark skin, making them hard to see
The nurse had little experience
The nurse had plenty of experience but just sucks at it

Sorry about that last entry but it's a possibility. I've trained a lot of medics to start IVs and the fact is some people just don't have the aptitude for it and never get good at it no matter how much they practice.