The tech that inserted the needle in my on Saturday tried the same spot today and was unable to hit the blood vessel cleanly. She tried moving the needle around in my arm several times. Good thing I got lidocane before she started poking. She did get some blood in the needle but when she tried to pull some blood out using a syringe, there was a lot of resistance. She ended up pulling out the needle and we just used the chest catheter today. It did look like she picked up a blood clot in the needle.
About two hours into the dialysis session, one of the supervising nurses came by to try sticking my arm again. My arm was still sore from the first attempt but I told him to go ahead anyway. He was also unable to hit the blood vessel so now I’m 4 for 8 in successful dialysis needle insertions. He said the fistula was pretty good sized so I’m not sure why there’s so many misses. At some point, I will need to remove the chest catheter so they have to insert the needle(s) into the fistula accurately.
Life with chronic diseases 