Lasix use in CHF? - Page 2

I work for a "for profit" hospice and my medical directors would never stop lasix on a CHF patient unless they were imminent and no longer able to swallow. It is good symptom management to treat pulmonary congestion in a CHF patient. Nobody should be left to drown in their own fluids. Now having said that, was it a patient ir family choice to do this and if so were they educated of the consequences.

Is the patient whose Lasix was d/c'd normotensive and still making urine? If not, there may have been a valid reason to stop using the Lasix. Just saying not all meds are stopped just because the patient is placed on hospice care. Sometimes the hospice referral comes late in the dying process and meds are stopped on admit because the patient is already imminent.

In my opinion the lasix should not have been DC'd at admission. Lasix is "addictive", at this point taking her off of it is likely to cause unpleasant and undesired symptoms that will complicate the dying process.

Here's what you need to remember about CHF and hospice. This comes from a colleague of mine who heard it a conference but it is wonderful. The goal is to have a metabolic death, not a congestive death. Death by dysrrythmia is far preferable to drowning in fluid from flash pulmonary edema. Lasix is a major player in comfort measures at EOL for our patients.