Medical related-Is there an actual name for this? - Writers Forum

lost cowboy · 03-15-2008, 10:55 AM

Is there a technical name for the thing they wrap around your arm to raise a vein for a shot? I keep coming back to the work tourniquet but that brings to mind staunching the flow of blood, not a medic trying to raise a vein so he can give a prisoner a shot. Which is the scene I'm trying to do here. Or can anyone suggest a word besides tourniquet? Thank you for taking the time to help out, I appreciate it!

TIA,
LC

Sam Winchester · 03-15-2008, 12:21 PM

They're the same thing. The item used to staunch bleeding is the same item used to raise a vein. The principle's the same. By stopping the blood-flow to one area, it raises the vein. To my knowledge, there is no other word.

Sam.

lin · 03-15-2008, 12:44 PM

Yep, it's a tourniquet. Specifically a phlebotomy tourniquet.

lost cowboy · 03-15-2008, 02:07 PM

Thank you for quick replies! Stumbling onward...

LC

Olly Buckle · 03-15-2008, 05:49 PM

Phlebotomy for taking blood rather than giving a shot Lin, I used to run reception at the phlebotomy dept of the Middlesex hospital, where the blood tests are done.

lin · 03-16-2008, 01:09 PM

Ah, a professional vampire.

Olly Buckle · 03-16-2008, 05:24 PM

I only booked them in, put labels on them and put them through the centrifuge, and I left in 1977. I do much scarier things now.

lin · 03-17-2008, 12:16 AM

We're all ears.

(Is there a medical term for that?)

seigfried007 · 05-08-2008, 05:51 PM

I had to have routine blood tests done as a child and used to call the phlebotomists 'vampires', which, I later found out, very much hurt the feelings of one particularly chubby blonde lady that usually drew from me.

Shots are often popped into muscles; IVs are usually given for anything that's needed to be in the bloodstream quickly or as a large and/or concentrated dose over a period of time. I've never been given a shot through a vein.

Tourniquets just dam blood vessels, whccih is what causes that raised reservoir (and the numbness, coldness, pain, etc)

Grief, I'm such a hopeless, pointless poster...

papertears · 05-08-2008, 10:42 PM

Off Topic:

I used to call them gynormous rubber band tourniquets. Then for my monthly B-12 level a few weeks ago, the phlebotomy type person (not sure what the singular term is) let the elastic strap go and it flipped up and smacked me in the jaw leaving a nice mark! She laughed about this, which normally I would have too if she'd at least seemed a bit sympathetic.

I guess she was having a bad day, she missed on the first two vials and had to ask me to hand her the third one. *smirk* I'm so used to having my blood taken that I volunteer to let the student phlebotomists (is that the term?) work on me. (Nursing students would offer free massages if you let them practice in college!) They always get excited and say I have awesome veins.

Now I call those elastic tourniquets defense weapons--and I'm going to try to slip one in my purse. When I watch movies with people that tie them off with their teeth, I'm very impressed by the dexterity/bravery.

By the way, once in day surgery, the nurse starting my IV dropped the tourniquet while she was sterile. I was late for my surgery because they were so backed up, and she asked me to grab one of those cords from the old type of BP devices (it looked like those old curly phone cords) and wrap it around my arm as tightly as possible. I just shrugged and did it, wanting to get my damn surgery over. It worked, we got the IV in. She gave me a high five after. I've see my heroin addict friend use/try all sorts of things--my really expensive thigh high pantyhoes, duct tape (didn't work--might be the one thing duct tape won't work for--she was pretty daft though, if she'd rolled it up and not used the sticky part she might have managed), the phone cord, an octopus tie.

papertears · 05-08-2008, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seigfried007

Shots are often popped into muscles; IVs are usually given for anything that's needed to be in the bloodstream quickly or as a large and/or concentrated dose over a period of time. I've never been given a shot through a vein.

Tourniquets just dam blood vessels, whccih is what causes that raised reservoir (and the numbness, coldness, pain, etc)

this is a really good point. i get B-12 injections all the time for my pernicious anemia and migraines, and they have never used a tourniquet. i can't recall them ever using one for a flu vaccine either.

i also have been donating blood to phlebologists for as long as i can remember and never put this together. they only use the gynormous rubber band thingy when they're taking stuff out!

Quote:

Grief, I'm such a hopeless, pointless poster...

shhh, calm yourself. there was point in that post, i learned something that should have been obvious to me. i didn't ask the question, but it causes me to fix an error in a short story i'm not brave enough to put up here yet!

even if you were guilty as you charge yourself here--there is quite the difference between the intent with which you posted here (and other places i've see your posts) and trolls.