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Re: Medical question: a thought
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Posted by Amy C on September 25, 1999 at 19:11:36:
In Reply to: Re: Medical question: a thought posted by Catherine Cartwright JOnes on September 25, 1999 at 15:01:53:
They use the nail beds to watch for signs of hypoxemia (not enough oxygen in the blood) or impaired circulation, which could make them blue or cause a slow capillary refill time (also tested in the finger & toe nails). This is also where they would place a pulse oximeter, which would help them determine when/if you needed oxygen and whether it was helping once you had it on. A pulse oximeter measures how oxygenated your blood is by shining light through it. Therefore it would be thrown off by henna on the fingertip or nail. These are probably more important considerations than the blood test issue. Like with the finger prick, an earlobe can substitute for a digit as a place to put the pulse oximeter. But if you had, say, leg surgery, the nail beds of the affected extremity are important for testing circulation there. I would avoid henna there if I knew I had surgery coming up, for that reason. I recently had arm surgery and my bandages were too tight and did turn my fingertips and nails dusky after I came home. Had I been hennaed, I might have missed that, because I was sort of numb. Excellent question. I love it when I get to be nursey on the forum.
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