Anyone Ever Had a PICC Placed?

[REP]

I have a multiple-antibiotic resistant kidney infection - nothing unusual, only this one is resistant to all oral antibiotics. I don't want to be in the hospital for 10 days, so a PICC is going to be placed tomorrow. Actually, it was going to be placed to today but both attempts failed so I'm going to Interventional Radiology tomorrow to get it placed. I've never had one before, so what should I expect? Does it hurt? I already know the lidocaine and tourniquets do, but didn't get as far as threading it up to my heart.

[KitchenWitch]

1. No I haven't, but I will be thinking good thoughts about you tomorrow!

:hug:

I am so sorry you have to go through this.

I am just getting over a fairly resistant strain of pneumonia, thankfully I did not have to do the IV thing, nor the PICC line. But I would have to avoid the hospital.

:hug:

[REP]

2. Thank You - It's SO Much Better Than 10 Days of Hospital Food

I wasn't that worried about having yet another kidney infection until my doctor called me today; he was pleading with me to be admitted if I hadn't heard from the Infusion Clinic by a certain time today (he knows I won't go to the ER or hospital unless he insists, and he was insisting in strong terms).

I'm so sorry you had to deal with pneumonia! Have you had a Pneumovax? If you haven't, be sure to ask about it; since I had mine, I've only had one very mild bout of it. If you had, demand a refund! I know it's not 100%, but still! And get better RIGHT NOW! I am far too tired to drive down to SoCal to force this issue, okay?

[KitchenWitch]

3. I have had the pneumovax three times

First time 20 years ago, second time ten years ago and third time like 2 years ago.

You take care and rest yourself. Good grief, kidney infections are fuggin difficult when they are not from resistant strains.

:hug:

You will not need to drive down here (good gods who would WANT to - our traffic is abysmal on a GOOD day!)

[REP]

4. Yikes!!!

You sure it's the vax and not say, pneumatic fluid?? That's not right at all! I'll keep quiet about these kidney infections - at least I haven't been given a 'magic bullet' to keep from getting them!

[KitchenWitch]

5. It was the vax

What I caught was one of the bacteria that is not covered by the vaccine. I think I had the mycoplasma pneumonia this time.

[REP]

6. Blargh

Well, try not to breathe unless you absolutely have to. Feel better now!

[KitchenWitch]

7. Good plan!

I will only breathe on alternating days!

;)

I am feeling better. And plan on staying that way!

:)

[SarahB]

8. No, but I've seen them placed in a clinical setting.

From what I have heard and seen, it isn't so bad. You should receive a local anesthetic and it doesn't go directly into your heart, just into one of the larger veins. Important things to remember- no blood pressures on the PICC side and you should receive sterile dressing changes every 2-3 days. It will also need to be flushed and heparinized 2-3 times a day (or after medication administration).

I have had 2 kidney infections though and they were awful. Fortunately, Cipro did the trick. Best wishes for a smooth recovery. :hug:

[REP]

9. Mine Is In The Heart - Saw the Fluoroscope

Turns out it's not as scary as it sounds, and the lidocaine is the worst of it. It's been in for about 12 hours and it does make the arm ache (it's supposed to) and I can feel the thing in the chest (gross) but all in all, it's waaaaay better than being in the hospital for 10 days. Or dying.

[mduffy31]

10. It may look like that it is in the heart

But if the tip of the PICC line was there it would disrupt the function of the heart valves. The tip of a PICC line is threaded until it rests in the Superior Vena Cava or cava-atrial junction.

[REP]

11. Well, The Damn Doctor Lied To Me Then!

See, I KNEW this thing wasn't any big deal!

[mduffy31]

12. It is going to be fine

I see them all the time at work, just thank god you will just have to get this placed and not have to have a new IV site placed every 72-96hrs instead. BTW do you know what antibiotics they are going to put you on?

[REP]

13. Tobramycin

Doing my own infusions. I'm in stage 2 failure (FSGS) so I'm having renal panels done every 5 minutes or so since it's nephrotoxic, and I'm on the renal insufficiency dosage.

I think this is my 10,000th kidney infection. All right, maybe only my 150th or so and this is the first one that is multiple-resistant. "They" can't figure why I get so many of them; they're all common organisms (e. coli, enterobacter aerogenes or k. pneumoniae) and some are resistant to Cipro and some to Nitrofurantoin, and none of them start as lower tract infections. They thought a stone in lower pole of the left kidney was the nidus ... nope; at least 10 recurrences since it was removed 2 years ago.