PICC Line

There are many different ways to treat Lyme. Right now I am on pills and drops but some Lymies out there are on IV's and have a picc line in their arm. I have a lyme friend that said I could post her pics on here to show what the picc line looks like so others can be informed. Here are a couple of the pictures and the description of what you are looking at...



Normally I would have a Biopatch around the actual port site, but I saw a different nurse this week and she thought the biopatch may be keeping moisture in and causing the blisters, so, I'm biopatchless.




The only time it is EVER bare like this is a less than 5 minute period on Wednesdays when the bandage is changed.




These are the bags of syringes that I have. They are different. Yellow caps are Heparin and keep the line from clotting, and the white are a saline solution to flush the line clean.





This is the medicine that goes into my PICC line. The syringes on the side are 2 different types. The white cap is a saline solution and is used to flush the catheter both before the medication is administered and after. The syringe with the yellow cap is Heparin. This is a blood thinner and is always used very last. This keeps blood from clotting where the tube meets my blood stream.

The large "bulb" is my antibiotic. It's called Ceftriaxone, and is generic for Rocephin. I infuse that into my PICC once a day, every day around 8:15pm. The infusion takes 30 minutes. The bulb is pressurized, so I hook it up to my PICC and it empties itself. Once that is finished, you flush and use the Heparin.





This was the day it was inserted. I no longer use such large bandages, but the entire set-up is exactly the same :)





This is a graph showing the PICC line placement.




I get a week's worth of medication each Wednesday.


The bandage actually has a clear film that covers the entire section where the tubing actually comes out of my arm, so that's why you can see into it.



This is my PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter). The small purple tube that you can see stretching from the white area to the blue circle (a Biopatch) is actually inserted into my vein, and fed up through to a main return valve of my heart.

There was an incision and the Biopatch covers up the actual port where the tube comes out of my arm.







I wear this net over my PICC for a few different reasons. Mainly, to keep the tubing that hangs out from catching on things. I also wear the netting to prevent the bandages from getting dirtier than they do.