The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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11:11am on Friday, 18th August, 2023:
Anecdote
Recently, I was invited to join the Our Future Health programme. I doubt that this will stem the flow of advertisements I get for them on Youtube when I don't sign in (they outnumber even Cotswold Furniture ads) but it's for a large-scale, longitudinal research exercise so I thought I should participate.
Participation involved going to a set-up in Boots in Colchester to have my height, girth, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol measured, plus some blood taken for DNA analysis.
The nurse was astonished that my cholesterol level was low, and suggested I spoke to my GP to get taken off statins. I said that maybe the statins were the reason it was low. It's never really been high; I'm only on the statins because my brother died of a heart attack 12 years ago and the doctor put me on them as a precaution. Likewise, my blood pressure isn't out of range.
The cholesterol test involved a finger prick (which the nurse was susprisingly surprised to learn hurt). It was done seperately, because the result could be given there and then. The remaining blood sample was to be taken from my arm.
After ten minutes of trying, the nurse (a trained phlebotomist) gave up as she was unable to find a vein. I have plenty of easy veins in my hand where blood could be taken, but that's only allowed in hospitals. Out of hospitals, the blood has to come from the interior angle of the elbow.
Medical personnel always have trouble getting blood out of me, but this is the first time they've had to abort the process. Normally, at the GP surgery, I lie down because my blood pressure drops precipitously when a needly finds a vein; it may be that a side-effect of lying down is that they can get the blood easier. There was no lie-down option in Boots, though, so that was that.
I dare say that the fact they couldn't get any blood out of me is useful information in and of itself for the research, just so long as the reason was given. I don't want their algorithms to think I'm squeamish.
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Copyright © 2023 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).