I got called into dialysis early today. Right away the tech tried to stick a needle in my arm. This time she used a regular needle. It was longer and thicker than what they’ve been using on me before. It looked really big and scary. They did give me lidocaine before so it didn’t hurt but now the lidocaine is wearing off, my arm is pretty sore. The machine is running at 250 ml/min so they’re slowly ramping up the flow rate too.
Initially the lead nurse wanted to put two needles in my arm but the tech didn’t think I was ready. Since this was the first time using the regular sized needle (instead of the thinner short needle), we decided to still run one needle in the fistula and use one port in the catheter a few more times.
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It’s over. It wasn’t too bad during the dialysis session, though I had to actively remember not to move my right arm. It was still sore throughout the entire session but bearable; not sure about having two huge needles though. It did hut a lot more when a different tech pulled the needle out. I only held it for about 10 minutes before she taped me up so I hope it doesn’t bleed everywhere when I take off the tape and gauze.
Life with chronic diseases 