Infared (LED) light to see veins in a patients arm...Yes, thats right...

KDOG3

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
4,240
Location
Sea Isle City, NJ
I am possibly going to pursue a career change as phlebotomist and anyone whose had blood drawn knows some people have hard to find veins which can lead to a painful experience. I've seen they've come out with these devices that shine a infared or near-infared light down on the patients arm that makes the veins just jump out cuz the light makes the veins turn black. (It picks up the iron in the bloodstream.)

My question and possible idea is could there be a flashlight that has the same wavelength Ir driver/emitter setup to have the same effect that I could own myself?

I apologize in advance to the forum administrators if this is in the wrong forum, but since the infared emitters are LED style I figured it could go here.
 

CarpentryHero

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 4, 2010
Messages
3,095
Location
Edmonton
If you can find the emitter, someone like Nailbender could make it into a P60 dropin.
There are lights that are ir or have it filters. Not my strong suit but do you know the wavelength?
 

KDOG3

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
4,240
Location
Sea Isle City, NJ
Unfortunatley I don't. I know one device was called "Vein Viewer" though. I'll have to try to look it up.
 

alpg88

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Messages
5,282
lol,
you can't see a vein with ir flashlight, you can see your veins in fingers if you shine lights from the other side of the arm, red light seem to work better that white, but it only works on fingers, and even than you cant really tell how deep the vein is.
flir would be able to see veins.

but if some one tried to take my blood, and needed help seeing veins, no way i would let some one like that even touch me, you really should be able to find veins with your eyes and using skills, before attempting to draw blood, from human or even animal, i'm pretty sure no hospital will allow it, can't say i disagree.
 

jerry i h

Enlightened
Joined
Jul 26, 2007
Messages
268
Location
Berkeley, CA
...do you know the wavelength?
LED Supply has 630nm (10,000mcd) and 660nm (2,000 mcd). However, these are low power 5mm LED's. You could stick them into a Photon or generic; I did this trick with a UV 5mm LED. If these are correct wavelengths, you could someone here on CPF to mod a headlamp with several of these things you could wear during your shift.
 
Last edited:

KDOG3

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
4,240
Location
Sea Isle City, NJ
Well heres a link to a video of one of the devices:

http://www.christiedigital.com/en-u...videos/Pages/VeinViewer-IV-Demonstration.aspx



Pretty neat. I think I would rather have my blood drawn with someone using this for accuracy than "searching" for a good vein, wouldn't you?

Obviously an Ir flashlight wouldn't be as fancy as this but it would just be something to HELP. by making a hard to find vein stand out so I could be more accurate where I stick.
 
Last edited:

res1cue

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
68
I am possibly going to pursue a career change as phlebotomist and anyone whose had blood drawn knows some people have hard to find veins which can lead to a painful experience. I've seen they've come out with these devices that shine a infared or near-infared light down on the patients arm that makes the veins just jump out cuz the light makes the veins turn black. (It picks up the iron in the bloodstream.)

My question and possible idea is could there be a flashlight that has the same wavelength Ir driver/emitter setup to have the same effect that I could own myself?

I apologize in advance to the forum administrators if this is in the wrong forum, but since the infared emitters are LED style I figured it could go here.

A good high output will do it for bigger veins.. but veins like that you won't need help with anyways

Used to be an ER phlebotomist, and my trick was always look in the shoulder, you will be surprised. My last day on the job, I put a 14 gauge in a coding man's shoulder. Veins up there tend not to have any sclerosis or intimal thickening, they are also well anchored

They do make specialized lights to see veins, but really they are all kind of gimmicky. It's all about practice, you'll be fine without a light
 

KDOG3

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
4,240
Location
Sea Isle City, NJ
A 14 gauge? Holy... Ow...

Oh I'm definetly going to learn how to do it without any gadgets, I won't have a choice - we gotta do 100 successful sticks before we can sit for the board. Just something like that would help narrow down those pain in the arse situations, no pun intended.
 

Sgt. LED

Flashaholic
Joined
Sep 4, 2007
Messages
7,486
Location
Chesapeake, Ohio
Hey!
About a year and a half ago (I think) I was on the phone talking to a fellow at Peak and he was talking about making a pocket sized light that could do this very well.
I never had one mind you but he said he could make them.
Maybe you could try to get ahold of someone there.
 

Karl666

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 19, 2011
Messages
31
Hi,

Here is a picture I took with a FLIR P640 thermal imager. It shows the veins in a persons feet. I'm a torch nut and a qualified thermographer :)

EDIT : Looks like the image is not showing. I linked from flickr but it seems not to show. Seems it only shows if I l'm logged into my flickr account. not sure how to make it public ? oh well..

6817639124_67a0eac9d8_z.jpg
 
Last edited:

res1cue

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
68
A 14 gauge? Holy... Ow...

Oh I'm definetly going to learn how to do it without any gadgets, I won't have a choice - we gotta do 100 successful sticks before we can sit for the board. Just something like that would help narrow down those pain in the arse situations, no pun intended.

That particular man was kind of beyond the pain stage, and definitely needed one

Also if you have trouble, you can get a doc to hold an ultrasound to the pt's bicep for like a deep brachial/cephalic
 

127.0.0.1

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
1,000
Location
/etc/hosts
Vein Viewer doesn't make the veins show up in a simple way...it is a projector system.

VeinViewer uses near-infrared (NIR) light and other patented technologies to detect subcutaneous blood
and create a digital image of the patient's superficial vein pattern projected directly onto the surface of the skin in real time.

no simple flashlight is going to show veins, you need serious equipment like the VeinViewer
 

notrefined

Enlightened
Joined
Sep 4, 2004
Messages
383
Location
Illinois
I've used my EDC to transilluminate for venipuncture. Sufficiently intense white light works reasonably well, but you will only ever get superficial veins this way. If the superficial veins aren't adequate for your purpose, then ultrasound imaging is your next best bet- and that will typically require a physician to perform the procedure (which I am). I don't really believe there is much margin between transilluminating with white light vs. red, aside from reduced source intensity requirements. My application is primarily for venous access (starting IVs), however.

My finacee, who has been a phlebotomist, would tell you that if you can't feel the vein you shouldn't be sticking. And I would tend to agree- for a blood draw, anything you can't feel will probably collapse before you can draw an adequate sample.
 

CarpentryHero

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 4, 2010
Messages
3,095
Location
Edmonton
Vein Viewer doesn't make the veins show up in a simple way...it is a projector system.

VeinViewer uses near-infrared (NIR) light and other patented technologies to detect subcutaneous blood
and create a digital image of the patient's superficial vein pattern projected directly onto the surface of the skin in real time.

no simple flashlight is going to show veins, you need serious equipment like the VeinViewer

Definitely, I figured the Origional poster knows that we can't see IR and that he'd be using a video camera in night vision mode. (I wish my iPhone didn't have an IR filter)
 

CarpentryHero

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 4, 2010
Messages
3,095
Location
Edmonton
Hi,

Here is a picture I took with a FLIR P640 thermal imager. It shows the veins in a persons feet. I'm a torch nut and a qualified thermographer :)

EDIT : Looks like the image is not showing. I linked from flickr but it seems not to show. Seems it only shows if I l'm logged into my flickr account. not sure how to make it public ? oh well..

6817639124_67a0eac9d8_z.jpg

These are definitely men's feet as they aren't reeding at subzero temperatures like my Wife's feet :naughty:
 

Fresh Light

Enlightened
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
437
Location
Stratford WI
They have a couple of the VeinViewers here at my work. I have used them a number of times with pretty good success. The machine does a thermal scan of what ever is under it then it uses a green and black monochrome DLP projector to project the thermal image onto the skin in real time. I know when they aquired the machines the representative said green and black was chosen because it works the best with all the different skin colors.

It's been a long time since i've had that unit out and when I wanted it the dept that had it put it in storage because it's really not that useful. If IV access is really needed and nothing is felt or seen ultasound is better in my opinion. I've not used the Vein lights but like they've said above, kinda gimicky. The lights were reddish orange LEDs from what I remember and around 300.00 in the book. Something like the VeinViewer is quite expensive though.
 
Last edited:

Karl666

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 19, 2011
Messages
31
These are definitely men's feet as they aren't reeding at subzero temperatures like my Wife's feet :naughty:

LOL :)

Bit off topic but I normally use the camera for building inspections although recently ive been using it for varied applications. I rigged up a parallel charging cradle for some 18650's the other day and used my Thunder AC680 to charge them. All 3 batteries went in at the same voltage (3.7v) but noticed that during the CC phase one of the batteries showed a slight increase in temperature compared to the others. Wasnt noticable to the touch but the camera clearly shows it. Ive marked this one and will be keeping an eye on it during future charging session. All came off at 4.18v

Back to the thread - I'm no expert in the medical field but would have thought an effective way of detecting veins without laying hands on a patient would be thermal scanning. The deeper ones would be a little more challenging but any near the surface normally show very well. My camera is very sensitive < 25mk which enables me to pick up very minute changes in temperature. I've scanned many poeple for hand and leg issues and the camera is very revealing. IR cameras price range from approx £1200 - £35,000. Generally you get what you pay for. having said that, FLIR have recently release a new range of cameras that have very good sensitivity for a reasonable price.

Did you manage to see the image I posted ? I'm not able to see it so I thought there must be something wrong. This is the first image ive posted on this forum.

Regards
Karl.
 
Last edited:
Top