In Search of the Painless IV Start
Re: "Perfect Your IV Starts" (June, p. 46). Lisa Hardee, BSN, RN, MAHS, CGRN, states that the lidocaine skin wheal is just as uncomfortable as the IV needle itself. With the use of localizing for all IV starts, we've been able to reduce the painful IV to near zero. As for the "ouch" with the local: Done correctly, our experience has been about 25% not feeling the skin wheal at all. The remaining 75% describe it as less than a mosquito bite. Again, for IV insertion after localizing, many of our patients continue to say, "Wow, I didn't even know the IV was started!" or "I didn't feel anything." In short, the painless IV is achievable.
Robert R. Jirgl, CRNA
Dowagiac, Mich.
anesdowagiac@aol.com
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show all keywordsDry; Football; Hardee; IV; IVs; SVC; Search; back; bitterly; blood; bring; catheter; central; chloride; cloth; complain; complete; concept; constrictive; continue; convective; cooling; describe; dissipate; distend; distention; due; effective; effectiveness; engorge; engorgement; ethyl; experience; fact; feel; feeling; force; foreign; heat; improvement; inhibited/prohibited; inserted; insertion; issue; large; layer; lidocaine; local; localizing; lose; loss; makes; matter; minutes; moist; moisture; mosquito; move; moving; needle; notorious; nurses; painful; painless; patients; peripherally; phrase; placement; placing; players; prone; quality; reduce; remaining; remains; repositioning; research; route; size; skin; start; stated; states; structures; subdermal; successful; support; syncope; taught; tissue; told; totally; transient; uncomfortable; veins; vena; venous; warmth; wheal; years
