Medication Quiz

[stephenrb81]

Pulled the idea from the "Cardiac Quiz" in the BLS forum and decided to start one here in Education & Training. Anyone can answer but try to give those in lower scopes and students a moment to come up with the answer first

Feel free to post a Medication/pharmacology question. I'll start:

Name the two conditions associated with giving D50 to a known, malnourished, alcoholic. And what Medication, Route, Dose is to be given as a precaution to the above conditions.

 

[sdadam]

It can cause Wernicke’s encephalopathy or Korsakoff’s psychosis.

To avoid this administer thiamine, 10 to 100mg, acceptable administration routes of thiamine are IV and IM.

Administer the thiamine prior to administering the D50.

-Adam

 

[FLAEMT22]

Agree with Adam.

 

[mycrofft]

I see, it matches other resources, but what's the mechanism?

Wikipedia was funny. "Thiamine deficiency must be addressed before correction of hypoglycemia is attempted". Hmmmmmm fingerstick of 20 obtunded and potentially seizing from hypoglyc as well as impending ETOh detox, versus precipitating Wernicke's...moderation I assume should be the keyword here.

 

[FLAEMT22]

I don't like how they worded addressed before, but in all reality it's only a 30-45 time gap between getting Thiamine and then getting D50 on board.

 

[mycrofft]

Minutes or seconds?

How about one in each arm and have a race?
Yeah, in real life when you have a good line in the issue may be slowing down a little and not dumping stuff in too fast, not taking too long. I was just tickled at the possible concept that impending death was preferable to Korsakov's Syndrome.
Thanks for the good question!

 

[JPINFV]

Well, if they do develop Korsakov's, it's not like they're going to remember it.