Re: Medical question: a thought
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.
- fingernail came off what can I do? Linda 22:22:20 8/01/00
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- not quite henna related, but fingernail related, sorta Anne 19:48:33 9/25/99
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