About the drug Narcon

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Hi -- I'm pretty new to this site and this is my first post so forgive me if it's in the wrong place.

My question is actually about a family situation i'm going through. My dad is a 58 year old diabetic who is also on kidney dialysis. Last Friday he had his foot and lower leg amputated (4 inches below the knee) because of an infection. I saw him when it was over and he was in pain but he was talking and resting and seemed okay. He was sitting up occationally and talking with everyone.

Well then apparently in a span of two days his condition worsened, the doctors said his body wasn't handling the pain medication and his oxygen levels were low and blood suger low. They took him back to ICU and gave him Narcon TWICE. Since then he's woken up and he is hallucinating, seeing things, crying, asking that he not be sent to the mental hospital. He says he see's people floating into the ceiling. He see's trucks parked in the ICU hallways. Tools lying all around and construction going on that's not really there.

the nurses are telling me that it's the medication and it will wear off but I am worried about my dads mental health. Is there a side effect to Narcan? It's been 2 days and he's still seeing things. Can anyone offer some insight?

Thanks,

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Specializes in ER/ICU/Flight.

Hi. I think you are referring to Narcan, which is an opiate reversal agent to stop the action of his pain medication. It has a very short half-life, 10-15 minutes in some cases depending on the amount of opiates in the system.

I'm not discrediting what the RNs are telling you, but I believe they are telling you about the reversal of the pain medication, not the actual side effect of the Narcan. The only effect it has is to reverse a narcotic.

hope this helps some, and I hope your dad improves!

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I'm sorry, you are correct it is Narcan. Yes the nurses and a doctor told the family that if they had not administerd the Narcan he could have died. I'm grateful they did it. I'm just worried about the things he is seeing. I didn't realize it was that quick acting. They have said that the hallicuinations could be because of all the medications he has had in the past 5 days. And that it should wear off.

thanks so much for the quick response.

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I should preface this with the fact that I'm not a nurse, but I do have a LOT of experience with the ICU. My mom has been in about half a dozen times--the last time for almost a week. (diabetes, COPD, Congestive Heart Failure...she's a mess). Now, I don't know how long your dad has been in the ICU, but apparently (No one warned me this could happen, and I wish to God someone had, because it was very distressing!) after someone has been in the ICU for a few days, they sometimes develop a temporary "dementia" due to the stress their body is under, and the fact that they don't get proper sleep because of the lighting and noise.

My mom was unconscious for a few days on the ventilator, then she was awake, but still had a tube down her throat, so she couldn't talk. We brought her a little dry-erase board, and she kept writing over and over that she was scared, the nurses were trying to hurt her, she needed to be moved to another facility because she wasn't safe, etc. She was VERY agitated and paranoid.

A nurse friend explained the ICU dementia thing to my husband after he told her how upset I was when I got home from seeing my mom. She assured us it would go away once my mom was out of the ICU, maybe even a little sooner. Within a few days my mom was totally back to normal and didn't remember any of it.

I don't know if this is the case with your dad. Maybe some of the ICU nurses here can chime in and let me know if I'm totally off-base, but I know my experience was awful and it was a HUGE relief to find out that it was a fairly common, temporary thing. (You can google "ICU dementia" or "ICU delirium" and find a bit more information.

Good luck with your dad. Hang in there!

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

I think this is really something that should be discussed with her doctors and nurses. We at allnurses can not give any medical advice as per Terms of Service.

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