posted
My daughter is 18 years old and had a picc line installed on 9/1/09 last night above her bandage it became red swollen and hot, so I took her to the ER they did blood, blood culture, ultrasound and xrays. After 4 hours the doctor came in and said her white blood count was good and that the ultrasound came back with having no blood clots
Does anyone know what else might be causing this, she said it is painful and hot to the touch, any advice what I should do now
Posts: 200 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2007
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feelfit
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 12770
posted
Mrs Scampi,
I had this occur when my Picc was installed. In the bicep area? It hurt like I had lifted weights too long. I was red and swollen.
I called the home care nurse and my doctor, which I advise you to do as well.
Mine ended up being from the trauma of the insertion. I had this for about a week. I was told to take naproxen and to keep a hot compress on the area....It worked.
I kept my PICC for 3 months w/o any other incidents.
Hope that this helps, Feelfit
Posts: 3975 | From usa | Registered: Aug 2007
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It could be phlebitis, which is inflammation of the vein. Most occur within a week of insertion which fits your daughter's case.
The inflammtion can be caused by mechanical trauma of insertion, (they use a dilator to dilate the vein to accomodate the size of the PICC), movement of the PICC in the vein, irritating the vessel walls (just normal arm movement or lifting greater then 5-10 lbs).
Not to be confused with thrombophlebitis which is a clot and inflammation.
I agree with feelfit let the home infusion agency and LLMD know.
Warm, wet copmresses will help, and if she can take motrin or alveve to reduce inflammtion. Also keep in mind cultures can take 24,48 or 72 hours to grow. But since her white count is good and ultrasound did not show any clots it may just be phlebitis. With treatment is usually resolves fairly quickly.
posted
can also be from the vein spasming around the cath.
needs to be carefull with movement of that arm. at 18 she i more likly to be more active (generally speaking here), so not raising that arm, dont lift with it, etc.
once i had a problem with pain and swelling had to have mine pulled. this was not lyme tx, was pneumonia and was YEARS ago-- unrelated (maybe not but we dont know for sure)
call homehealth. they have nurse on call 24/7. they NEED to come look, doesnt matter if holiday. sorry but nurses - we dont get normal "hollidays". we usually rotate who gets what off. folks dont not have a prob. just because its labor day.
call them, nurse needs to take look.
any supps for internal inflammation on board??? that may help as well. like zyflamend??? just thought.
good luck. oh, and be best to let the nurse flush it before used next time...make sure is ok
-------------------- i am not a Dr. any info is only for education, suggestion or to think/research. please do not mis-intuprest as diagnostic or prescriptive, only trying to help. **
dx in 08:lyme, rmsf, bart, babs, and m.pneumonia. Posts: 422 | From TX | Registered: Oct 2008
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posted
My friend had pain around insertion site. She found out that the thicker part of the picc line (the thin part is inside the arm) was actually inserted, when it should be sticking out. not sure if that was clear. but basically picc line was pushed in too far.
Posts: 67 | From New York | Registered: Dec 2005
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Rumigirl
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 15091
posted
That was me that jaykay was talking about. The home-care nurse was the one who noticed it (I wouldn't have known). He took out the stitches that held the catheter in place, pulled it out 2 centimeters, and then put in a Statlock to hold the catheter in place. That is a plastic device that the catheter fits in, which is held in with a butterfly thing.
I have no idea if this is your daughter's problem, but it's possible. Hopefully, the home-care nurse could tell and do this. frankly, I think I lucked out with a very knowledgeable nurse.
Also, you could go back to wherever she had it inserted and have them check it out to make sure that it's placed properly, etc.
I had A LOT of pain after the insertion for quite a while. And still have pain many months later (but much less so). BUT, it wasn't red, hot, and swollen---BIG difference.
She does need to be much more careful about movement, lifting than I realized ahead of time. It still surprises me how little things can make it hurt a lot.
Don't give up on finding out the problem and taking care of it.
Posts: 3771 | From around | Registered: Mar 2008
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