Vein Viewer

 Image courtesy www.christiemed.com

In the last few years, I have had several friends who almost lost the use of their arms forever after errors were made when they received intravenouses. They truly suffered. Their arms blew up, turned black-and-blue and were filled with excruciating pain.

For some reason, doctors or nurses missed their veins. In one instance, a needle was mistakenly inserted into a muscle. In the second case, the needle fell out of the vein and the fluids circulated in all of the wrong places.  And In the third case, my friend got a terrible infection after a physician’s assistant poked her too many times. 

That is why I took particular interest when I heard of an invention that takes the guesswork out of trying to find a vein. A Memphis-based company, Christie Medical Holdings, “designed a device that can locate veins inside a person’s arm using a harmless near-infrared light.”

It’s called the Vein Viewer. The company’s website says it uses an infrared light “to look under the skin which then projects an HD image of the veins onto the surface of the skin. It can find veins up to 0.4 inches or 10mm deep. The light detects hemoglobin in the blood and then instantly illuminates the intricate network of veins.”

It’s almost like a roadmap. Little chance for error. Watch the video demonstration. For more information, read Industrytap.com.