Arterial Blood Gases

henryak

Hi I am Writing a paper for college on the patients perspective of having Arterial Blood Gases (ABG) taken I would really appreciate your views on your personal experiences of having these done and your view

ElBarco

What exactly do you want to know?

Tis pretty crappy alright.

DrIndy

From a medical perspective - Its stings as it is a sensitive part of the arm and always try to do it by 45degree approach rather than "straight stab" as patients feedback to me that it hurts less.

In a non-emergency setup - I try to avoid them as a venuous gas is nearly as good unless you need to be absolute about carbon dioxide and oxygen levels and are easier to do.

If its not an emergency and the patient has a good pulse, I always use a small amount of local anaesthetic to take the edge off it - and ALWAYS do it for permanent arterial lines - but if the pulse is weak or difficult, putting in local anaesthetic thickens up the underlying tissues and can make it difficult to get requiring multiple stabs which defeat the purpose of using a local anaesthetic to begin with.

They sting but are unfortunately essential sometimes!

bob50

i have had 3 off these tests done in a&e over the last 7 years and i must say not very pleasent

Anyway I suffer with asthma & had breathing probs ( chest infections) on the 3 occasions i went to the a&e dept first abg the doc put the needle in my groin that test was horrendus endend up having a panic attack &hyperventilating while he was doing it after that i had two abg tests done one by lady doc taken from my wrist not too bad & then the next one by a man doc left my wrist very sore after that any other time i had to visit the a&e i refused this test

What purpose do these tests serve

DrIndy

It tells us how well your lungs are able to transfer oxygen to the rest of you. It also tells very accurately how much carbon dioxide you are retaining.

In asthma, once you start retaining carbon dioxide, it means you have started to become so exhausted that you are approaching the point of needing a ventilator so is very important in severe stages.

You can also draw a vein sample, but it is not as accurate as you normally need the cuff to be off the arm for it to be accurate and it is hard to draw blood then and even get a sample.

Groin stabs are best if the arteries in the wrist are too tricky - they in general actually hurt less, but people don't like the big needle and syringe rapidly approaching. You will always get blood this way so its excellent.

Blood gases in asthma help tell us if someone with bad asthma is near fatigue and death or still hanging on so are important tests unfortunately!