What is your experience with venoscopes?

Ana,

If I were you, I'd try to get more comfortable with sticking the tiny or the very big before buying a venoscope. Doing this will help you in the long run - Starting IVs is a trial and error thing, and depending on the day..you may have to rely on your gut and not the venoscope. I have used them in the past and they are nice to have around...but I don't own one or use them day to day while starting IVs. They are wonderful on little one's with little showing up, but i don't rely on them as a first line tool....and they're hella expensive.

Just my $.02

vamedic4

A good penlight would probably be just as helpful.

I find the penlight to be clumsy.

You can find transilluminators (new) on Ebay for about $20 bucks. You may be able to talk a freebie out of a sales rep.

I bought one online for 175 bucks. Pretty expensive for what's essentially a flashlight, but I haven't been able to duplicate the results, even with a really bright LED light. Is it worth the price? It has been, to me. Good stickers tell me to go by feel, but it sure is helpful to be able to see. Everyone tells me confidence is the main thing, and the venoscope helps my confidence. I don't use it every time, but I use it a lot.

I find it especially helpful on very dark-skinned people.

Hi..student nurse here....Can you give me some insight on the pen light for inserting IV's? Any tips would be helpful. We just started IV class today....Yikes! By the way, what exactly is a venoscope?...Thanks.

I have a really bright penlight that I got at Walmart in the flashlight section. I was playing with it the other day on my and my 6 yr old...it was cool. I think a bigger light though would work better. Maybe a mini mag light? I was wondering about dark skin people..cool to hear it works good on them too. I'm as white as a ghost and my legs look like a roadmap you can see every vein in them lol..so I'm not a very good tester lol.

The light from an otoscope works well, too

Our facility just purchased a Vein Viewer. $25,000 piece of junk.

Seriously, if you're not familiar with this , it is a very large 'over head lamp' that displays a green light onto the arm or wherever, and when it comes into focus, ta-da!!!! veins look like a roadmap.

Here's the problem; it does an amazing job of locating veins. several of us have used it , and not one successful IV stick in the bunch. Just because you've located the vein does not stop the vein from rolling, hiding or blowing. We are all hopeful that it's just a 'learning curve' type of problem. But give my an experienced nurse over that contraption any day!