bad news yeaterday

Hi, can I ask what you mean when you say your veins explode and need a port, I've been having constant chest and arm pain, my heart feels as if its pounding but no one seems to care about it because its not diarrhoea or cramps

when they try to put in an IV my veins explode.

That must be pretty exciting when your veins explode. I don't even understand what that means. What are your Crohn's symptoms now?

Maybe so. What were you doing to treat your Crohn's before remi?

Did you do well on humira? For how long? why did you stop?

Rayal, I think you need to tell us some more about yourself. Two years on humira is a long time to use a medicine that isn't working.

exploding veins/blowing a vein
"Blowing" a vein can occur from several things...
1. Using too large of an IV catheter. INS standards say that one should always use the smallest gauge and length IV catheter possible for the prescribed therapy.
2. Your angle of insertion is importnat as well. The elderly population have had many age related changes with their skin and blood vessels. Because their vessels are more superficial (secondary to loss of SQ tissue) you may need to insert your device at a very shallow 5-10 degree angle.
3. In addition, once you've gained successful enry into your vessel and you've advanced your catheter's hub to insertion, release your tourniquet.
You also should pay attention to how tight your tourniquet is on the pt.
Elderly pt's usually require light tourniquet application to keep from blowing the vein.

i think i know what you mean by "veins exploding" when i went for my first dose of remicade the nurse was new and she didn't now what she was doing, she stuck me and my hand got purple and there was a lump from where she stuck me,about the size of a quater. that only happened once, ask for the most experienced nurse and they really now what there doing. i'm off remi now because i had a reaction but make sure you alternate arms and veins. if you get stuck to many times in the same spot your veins get messed up. you want to give them time to heal i guess, so if you alternate them each vein gets like 12 weeks to heal. how many times has this happened to your veins?

My veins blow all the time. I've been on steroids for a long time too. They had to stick me 3 times just to set an I.v. for my last colonoscopy. Three times is about the average, sometimes it's more. It's so frustrating and painful! I know a port is a big deal, but way better than being repeatedly jabbed with needles.

I took remicade every 5 weeks for a long time. I hope having the infusions sooner helps you.

Those blown veins can be quite painful. I've had my share of them. Welcome to the forum. -Joy