Sub. q stick from hep.c positive patient...

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I'm a fairly new nurse, I have only been working about 2 months, and last night I accidently got stuck by a lovenox needle from a hep. c postive patient, it barely pricked the skin, but it was enough to make it bleed, I'm so scared and nervous waiting on the results from the blood test, has this ever happened to anyone else, and if it did how did it turn out?

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Specializes in TELEMETRY.

Yes this has happened to me.. good thing it was SUB q... There is less chance if transmission this way...

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Specializes in NICU, Post-partum.
I'm a fairly new nurse, I have only been working about 2 months, and last night I accidently got stuck by a lovenox needle from a hep. c postive patient, it barely pricked the skin, but it was enough to make it bleed, I'm so scared and nervous waiting on the results from the blood test, has this ever happened to anyone else, and if it did how did it turn out?

There is less than a 1% chance of transmission...even if the instrument had blood and the stick was less than superficial.

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Specializes in acute care med/surg, LTC, orthopedics.

I've had several needlestick injuries but not with patients with a (known) blood-born virus. The risk of exposure is small but yeah... it can be he!l waiting for the results. Try not to lose any sleep over it.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

A few years ago I had a needlestick from a newborn whose mother was HepC positive (at that point the baby's status was unknown). All came back okay, but the wait seemed like forever. Hang in there, and I do hope everything turns out well for you also.

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Sorry to hear you are going through this stress... here's hoping the best for you.

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I am working as a medical assistant and was just recently hired myself and my hospital gives out an infection control practices for employees and volunteers at orientation. And in it, it states:

"The risk of HIV after a single needle stick injury or broken skin or mucous membrane contact with HIV infected blood is less than 0.5%. There have been under 50 occurrences since 1985 despite millions of needle sticks including thousands of needle-sticks where the patient was known to be HIV positive."

I realize that HIV is different from Hep C, but still assuming your wound was small, you should be ok.

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Specializes in Med/Surg and ANCC RN-BC.

I know nurses that have gotten HIV positive fluid in their eyes and they were fine. I know its probably nerve racking to know what the results are. Just breath and relax. I'm sure you will be fine. I know it's scary.

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Thanks for the info everyone, the doctor told me that there is just a very small chance of getting it, like 0.8% but I'm still going to be scared out of my mind until I get my blood test results back.

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I posted on here about a month ago about getting a sub q needlestick from a hep c positive patient.. And come to find out about a week later after they did her blood test, they informed me that she also has HIV. My question is should they have started me on prophylactic HIV meds even though it wasn't a known source? It's really freaking me out...

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

Depends on your facility's specific policies.

They may wait to find out your results, first (I assume you are having routine testing done?).

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Yes I'm supposed to have a blood test every month for 3 months, but I read the latest you can take the meds is only up to a week after the needlestick...

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