Draw your own blood - what can go wrong?

[Tiggsy]

I have fairly regular blood test done (health and fitness related mostly) so was paying £25 to get a nurse to do it....then switched to a neighbour who used to be a nurse and did it for a bottle of wine.

Last one I did myself as just always looks so easy (and it was) But someone recently said it was crazy and all sorts can go wrong.....over reaction or can a tiny tiny tiny little hole in your arm go pearshaped? I assume we are not as fragile as that and I can carry on sticking away?

They where saying you could hit an artery, collapse a vein, etc, etc

Years of lifting and ok BF% means my veins are like mcDonalds straws so not sure how I could miss???

[super7]

Probably not about hitting the vein... probably more about sticking something unclean in your vein. But what makes you differnet to an HCA if you follow the correct procedures and use Sterile stuff.

Crack on... i'd say....

[Tiggsy]

cool. I know how a cleaning swab works

[Brainpox]

There's not too much that can go wrong if you use a clean technique and apply pressure until the bleeding has stopped.

You are unlikely to hit an artery - there aren't many, are very deep and have muscular walls so require some effort to get into them.

The vein could collapse but if you are otherwise reasonable healthy it will recover quickly. It's rare that simply having a lot of blood tests will cause veins to disappear entirely - it's usually people on aggressive treatments such as chemotherapy that find their access gets worse over time.