CBC vein or finger stick?

Hi and hope all and hope this message finds you well.

Its been since mid November since my wife has had her first rituxan infusion and so far so good except she is constantly sick with either a virus or some bacterial bug. Her count hasn't dipped below 159 so far. The last time she went to her hematologist the lab only did a finger stick for her CBC vs the typical vein blood draw.

Are there any disadvantagesto a finger stick?

Thanks


Jay

Before I had to change medical my hematologist's office sent out a letter saying they were going to start doing finger "sticks", but if didn't want could have a draw instead. My new medical is an HMO with their own labs and thankfully just does the draw.

There was no way I was going to allow the old office to give me a finger "stick" - had that once and it was a slice not a "stick" and I refuse to get that ever again if I have anything to say about it.

I had read somewhere a few years back that with a "stick" the finger must be squeezed to get the blood out and that does something to the platelets - can't cite that info though.

My hemos office runs the tests for you right there so you get your cbc within 10 minutes. My platelets were lower than usual with a finger stick so they ran the vein draw and it was 26,000 HIGHER. There are some articles on it if you google it...plus the calibration of the machines, if they get a big enough sample, some count bigger platetes as wbc, etc.