Maintaining good veins

[rontaku]

Do people have helpful specialized information on how to help your veins recover from studies, especially ones which only use the single-stick od for blood draws? I know that long-term scarring is an issue that can prevent participation in future studies. I've heard of using vitamin-E oil, cocoa butter and shea butter, but is there anything else?

Perhaps we can get a separate thread devoted to this topic? It's an important one. Without long-term vein health, we are all limited in how many studies we're able to do.

[FloridaGirl]

Since I have one good vein I do my best to stay hydrated before and during the study especially for PK day and I always apply pressure post blood draw for a good 4 minutes and then I have a sweat band I use to apply more pressure just to make sure my vein closes up.
During PK day I try and put ice on my arm in between blood draws and if possible I apply arnica gel to the site to help with bruising.
I think K staying hydrated helps a lot so drink water when u are in house.
I guess when u get out u can masssge the area with vitamin E to help keep scaring down .
Or if u have two good veins alternate.
I have found the ice and extended pressure post blood draw have really helped andd the being hydrated.
Hope that helps.

[labrat1]

In different studies I have been told different things about my veins, some have told me I have 'bad veins' (and I was permanently banned from one clinic for that) and I have been told that I actually have very good veins and that they are better than those of most other people.
It can depend on the person doing the phlebotomy. One study doctor once told me that there is no such thing as good or bad veins and that certain research personnel just created that definition to put the blame on the volunteer when it is the person doing the blood draw but even after staying that, there are just times in which blood draws are not easy to do , it can be because there already had been a lot of blood draws on the same vein. Some people who have had successful blood draws on one vein suddenly then just cannot give blood on that vein etc etc.

For whatever reason, I have had worse luck with blood draws in the past. I used to have to worry if a phlebotomist could get blood when necessary. I don't know why but the two last studies I did required a great deal of blood draws and there were hardly any problems in them and to top it off, usually it has been my right arm that is best for blood draws, in the last two studies, both my arms were equally good.
Again it could have been the phlebotomists ( but in both cases I could see some were experts who could not do it right, and some were novices that did manage to do it right, so that is not an exact science either) or it could be other factors unforeseen.

I have heard that putting warm packs on your arms helps and so does drinking plenty of water and also walking around a bit.
(However I once drank several bottles of water and still the phlebotomists were unable to get a quick blood draw and had to try and try several times).