Eye splash?

[squatmunkie_RN]

Long story short, I was flushing an IV line in a pt. It was hard to flush, so I tried for a blood return, which I got a small one in the syringe. Tried to flush again and the fluid splashed in my face. I felt it go in my eye. The pt has no history of HIV/Hep, but does have hx of drug abuse, not sure what type.

Anyway I fill out an incident report, go to the ER, get blood drawn, the pt should have blood drawn too. I declined the post-exposure prophylaxis at the time. Now, I am regretting that. I'm nervous I'm going to catch something. I will see the employee health nurse tomorrow. Should I ask for it then? Will it be too late? I'm really nervous now!

[tablefor9, RN]

Your facility should have screened the pt after the incident with rapid hep/hiv panel, as well as performed a risk assessment. Hard to say whether you should take PEP without that information.

PEP regimens have a lot of nasty side effects; if your exposure wasn't much, you're probably home free. I know it's a scary time, and you're in my thoughts right now.

[Christen, ANP]

I got splashed in the face by a JP drain (ew!), may or may not have hit my eye. I flushed my eye a LOT, wrote it up, f/u with employee health. The likelyhood of you getting HIV or Hepatitis is pretty low from such a small exposure, but I'd do whatever employee health says to do!