Bryan Johnson optimized his blood-draw routine by testing different needle sizes. He settled on 21-gauge needles as the sweet spot for filling multiple vials without damaging veins, then uses Manuka honey and red-light therapy afterward to speed healing.
Because we draw so much blood, we've gotten really good at drawing the blood. And so we have a phlebotomist today that's exceptional. Every time she gets me one poke. And then we also learned that the size of the needle really matters. So we tried for a while to use 23 gauge needles, which are smaller, so it was better. Less vein damage and it was less painful. But they only give a certain amount of volume and the vein kind of taps out. So a 21 gauge, which is a bit bigger, a bit more painful, a bit more vein damage, also gives you the volume you need. We figured out that 21s were right for my blood draws. We're doing quite a few vials, and you don't want the vein to give out because then you have to poke again. We do a bunch of things like we put Manuka honey on the vein. After we do it, we use red light therapy for vein healing. So we really try to take care of the entire process of one stick, make sure all the vials are filled, and then proper healing of the vein afterwards.
