Bruising after Failed IV

Hi all, 

When I was sleeved on 8/5, they tried to put an IV on the back of my left hand for the anesthesia and stuff. Unfortunately, they weren't able to get the vein there and switched it to my right hand, down on the side of my wrist, where they were successful. 

13 days after surgery, I have a large bruise on the back of my left hand. Having never had a hand IV before, I just wanted to know if this was normal. My hand is a little sore, like it would be with any other bruise, but other than that and the discoloration, I haven't experienced any issues.

I only ask about this because the other bruise I have (from when they drew blood from my left arm) has faded to a nice yellow shade, while the hand bruise is a bit more noticeable. I'm guessing it hasn't faded as quickly because my hand gets more movement than the inside of my left elbow and that the persistence of this bruise may also have to do with the blood thinners they put me on in the hospital, although I don't know that for sure. My right hand didn't bruise at all and the only sign there was an IV there is the little red mark where the needle went in. 

When that happens to me, and it has, I have horrible brushing for weeks.  Missing the vein tends to blow out the vessel which causes beautiful colors.  If you're really worried, though, it doesn't hurt to ask your doctor!

Thanks for the reassurance. I figured it's because a) I've never had a hand IV before and b) I'm SUUUUPER pale (think Casper shades of porcelain), so that's also a contributing factor. I'm not overly concerned, since it isn't getting worse and I'm not in extreme amounts of pain.

Yeah, I'm super pale as well and bruises tend to last a long time. I've had some gnarly ones from when I've donated blood and the needle went askew on the way out. As long as it's not getting any bigger or showing increased swelling, you should be OK.

I had a huge bruise on my entire forearm from the anesthesiologist attempting to place an IV there after I was sedated (they needed one with a larger needle or something).  It was seriously gigantic.  Didn't hurt a bit, but looked rather impressive, ha.

They are definitely normal for an IV... when we are obese we can sometimes have veins that are hard to find so that doesn't help, either.

I HAVE HAD AN IV IN MY HAND 1 TIME FORTUNATELY NO BRUISE BUT I HAD A HARD LUMP INTHE BACK OF MY HAND THAT WAS PAINFUL AND LASTED ABOUT A WEEK. I CALLED MY DR. AND ITS NORMAL TO FEEL THAT LUMP OR HAVE A HORRIBLE BRUISE. IDK IF THEY ARE JUST MORE SENSITIVE OR IF WE JUST USE HANDS MORE AND THEY BRUISE EASIER OR TAKE LONGER TO HEAL

I've always been a "hard stick" and have had dozens of failed IVs and blood draws in my life. The bruising usually lasts about 3 weeks for me. They don't call it a "blown vein" for nothing! That's one of my recent NSVs actually -- getting blood work done and being told how great my veins are. What a 180!

Normalfor us hard sticks.....weeks for me!

I rub a little arnica cream on my bruises to help reabsorb them. It works wonders!  One thing to caveat - It's sometimes contraindicated with blood thinners. 

Something similar happened to me a couple days after my surgery, but in my case, my hand started swelling up like a balloon. I could tell something was off when the IV was bring inserted, because the nurse was using an awful lot of tape to complete the job. After it started swelling,it was removed and one was inserted properly in my right hand. It took at least 3 days for the swelling in my left hand to resolve.