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Avatar universal

Infection during venipuncture

Hi Guys,

Firs off, apologies for my bad English, I am not a native speaker. I recently attended an STD clinic in the UK for a full screening.
The nurse tried to draw my blood twice (cannot remember if both attempts were made with the same butterfly needle) but failed (for some reason my blood was not getting drawn into the test tubes).
After that she proposed to try the other arm and what happened next is what is now scaring me to hell.
She took a new butterfly needle, removed the cap but at that point i was feeling uncomfortable (i fainted a few times in the past while blood was being drawn). So I told her I was going to give the urine specimen in the room next door and we would try again after a couple of minutes.
When I came back, she was successful at collecting the blood samples.
What freaks me out is that I believe she used the butterfly needle she had previously uncapped. I did not notice if she put it on the equipment tray, the trolley or elsewhere (I am pretty sure without the cap), but started to panic afterwards.
So, in the end, if the butterfly needle without the cap was kept on those surfaces, potentially unclean, and then used to draw my blood, are there any risks of infection, for HIV and other blood-borne viruses (I read some other posts on the internet where patients saw bloodstains from previous patients on working surfaces).

Please tell me what you think, I am deeply worried.

Thanks a lot!
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Avatar universal
Hi Vance2335,

Thanks for your reply. I will seek counseling, as anxiety and possibly irrational fear are having the best of me.

I am not sure if I asked my question clearly, my main concern was the possible contamination of the butterfly needle from blood of other patients on surfaces (I did not pay attention to whether there was or not, but from what I read on other forums it might be realistic). The same needle was later used to draw my blood.

Is there no risk also for any blood-borne virus, besides HIV?

I was reading that some injection drug users get infected even if they use their own syringe to inject drug, by sharing the same spoon from where the melted drug is drawn into the syringes. Isn't that a similar scenario, where a needle is contaminated by the environment?

Sorry for my ignorance and maybe stupid questions.
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Avatar universal
You had no risk, you might want to seek a therapist to help with anxiety.
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