carbidopa

[BITOHUNNY]

Can you administer a scheduled dose of Carbidopa and 2 hours later administer another dose for shaking of the hands?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

It depends. Does the patient have an order to administer an additional dose two hours later for shaking of the hands? Most of what we do is covered if we're working under an order.

[BITOHUNNY]

There is a prn order for it but no stipulation on how long to wait before administering prn dose after scheduled dose.

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

Then why not clarify with the ordering physician

[systoly]

never seen Carbidopa used by itself

[amoLucia]

I haven't looked this up to confirm, but I remember a fact from somewhere about carbidopa ...

Dosages need to be administered really, REALLY close to scheduled times. NO deviance. Our 'window period' of an hour before or an hour after can really negatively affect the drug's effectiveness if given late. So I'm not thinking about the PRN, but am thinking about the regularly scheduled dosage to make sure all staff try to administer as close as poss to the sched time to prevent fluctuations in high & low values.

Just a thought to the cause for a PRN need...