A cute way to remember some lab values.

Nursing Students General Students

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K+ 3.5 â€" 5

Ca+ 4.5.- 5

Mg 1.5-2.5

Phos 1.8-2.6

Na+ 135-145

Cl 95-105

Crt .5-1.2

BUN 10-20

PTT 60-70 or 1 ½ times higher if on Heparin

PT 11.0 - 12.5 or 2.o -3.5 times higher if on coumadin

INR 2.0-3.5 for coumadin

WBC 5-10

RBC 5

HCT 40

Hgb 15

pH 7.35-7.45 (40)

co2 35-35

On vacation I -

Ate 4 bananas with 5 glasses of milk, read 2 magazines about 2 fossils.

Spent $140 on Napkins and a $100 on Clear heals.

Did 15 BUN exercises and drank 1 Creatine shake .

Met, 3 Idiots , 11 Pets and 65 Hunks.

Ate 4 bananas (K+ found in bananas) with 5 glasses of milk (ca+ found in milk), read 2 magazines (magnesium) about 2 fossils (phosphorus).

Spent $140 on Napkins (Na+)and a $100 on Clear heals. (Cl)

Did 15 BUN exercises and drank 1 Creatine shake (Creatinine) .

Met, 3 Idiots (I for INR),

11 Pets ( P is for PT) and 65 Hunks. (H is for heparin's PTT

Hyperstudent please come back and explain this to us!

Specializes in Cardiac/Telemetry.
Hyperstudent please come back and explain this to us!

Please do, because I really don't get it. Is it because I start NS in three days? or what?

Specializes in School Nursing.

:specs: Love your enthusiasm and sweet spirit...........

but what are you talking about Girlfriend !:roll

LPN 90

Cute way to remember lab values. Thanks!

Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

Cute - thanks for sharing! :)

Love it!!! Thanks for sharing this little gem!

Specializes in Psych, Informatics, Biostatistics.

Anyone got any ideas on how to remember the drugs for NCLEX ?

I dont get it either but I commend your thoughts on putting it up here. Maybe if you explain how it is supposed to be read we will all understand. Im not going to complain about any extra help I find on here so I thank you. And those of you that already have it in your head then I dont think this post was meant for you. I agree you need to understand why they are up or down but you need to understand a normal value first to determne if it is abnormal. Which is what it looks like this little thing was trying to say. Thanks again hyerstudent....

K+ 3.5 â€" 5

Ca+ 4.5.- 5

Mg 1.5-2.5

Phos 1.8-2.6

Na+ 135-145

Cl 95-105

Crt .5-1.2

BUN 10-20

PTT 60-70 or 1 ½ times higher if on Heparin

PT 11.0 - 12.5 or 2.o -3.5 times higher if on coumadin

INR 2.0-3.5 for coumadin

WBC 5-10

RBC 5

HCT 40

Hgb 15

pH 7.35-7.45 (40)

co2 35-35

On vacation I -

Ate 4 bananas with 5 glasses of milk, read 2 magazines about 2 fossils.

Spent $140 on Napkins and a $100 on Clear heals.

Did 15 BUN exercises and drank 1 Creatine shake .

Met, 3 Idiots , 11 Pets and 65 Hunks.

Ate 4 bananas (K+ found in bananas) with 5 glasses of milk (ca+ found in milk), read 2 magazines (magnesium) about 2 fossils (phosphorus).

Spent $140 on Napkins (Na+)and a $100 on Clear heals. (Cl)

Did 15 BUN exercises and drank 1 Creatine shake (Creatinine) .

Met, 3 Idiots (I for INR),

11 Pets ( P is for PT) and 65 Hunks. (H is for heparin's PTT

Too cute!!!

bananas have potassium, 4 is the middle of the "norm"

5 glasses of milk = Ca being at 5.0

2 magazines = Mg 2.0

and so on, does that make sense?

For those that aren't seeing the pattern, be sure to read the last paragraph of the original post: it's explained pretty well there, I think. I didn't get it when I read just the first part ("On vacation I..."). It isn't perfect, it skips around and such, but if you find it helpful, then it's wonderful! Anything that keeps info in your head is good.

On the other hand, using this system would screw me up on my tests: taking a "middle value" to remember might be fine if it was always exactly a middle value, but WILL you remember phosphorous has a normal range of 1.8-2.6 when you've actually memorized "2"? Or will you think the normal range is 1-3? What if the values on the test questions require you to know that 1.3 is low, but now you don't recognize that?

I don't have any easy way to remember the numbers; I have to re-memorize them from time to time, and particularly before tests. I use lots of mneumonics for word lists (symptoms, etc) and they work very well for me. But numbers, well....I just don't know if there is any easy way to do it when you have odd ranges like these!

Goodluck, all :)

NurseMommyof3 and Rn2b thank you for clarifying the story for me, I have been at nursing orientation all week and have not been on the computer. I thought the chart would be as helpful to some of you as it was to me when I was given it. I apologize that some of you are having difficulty:mad: . What ever method you find that works for you is what you should stick with. Everyone is a little different. I can put very long list into a story and memorize it, so this little story helped me....especially with Phos. and Mag. for some reason I use to pull a memory block with those two.

Even if you do not understand it now it may be something that will be helpful in the future once you have a working knowledge of lab values.

Rachel

I love it!!! I was just trying to figure out a way to remember them, thank you!!

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