Chest tube question

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Can someone explain this about chest tubes please. We don't do them very often.

Water seal vs. to gravity... is this the same thing? I had an order to place my CT to water seal in the AM and they were to get an xray later. Then I heard the docs talking about placing it to gravity later... thought that was the same.

Next, this is really dumb! The next RN asked me if the CT was clamped off. I told her it was to water seal. I thought we weren't supposed to ever clamp off d/t risk of a tension pneumo? Do they ever order to actually clamp off the tube before deciding to take it out?

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Hi,

The way we do it is:

Water seal is hooked up to wall suction so you get a nice rolling bubble in your water chamber (we usually keep ours at 15)

gravity is when we turn the suction off

we almost always clamp it for several hours before pulling it out to make sure that there is a seal

tina

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Now I think you're talking about your CT being to suction when the chamber A is bubbling. Placed to water seal, suction is turned off.

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

Water seal here is suction off.

Otherwise it's to suction. I've never heard it referred to as "gravity."

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Specializes in Level III NICU.
Water seal here is suction off.

Otherwise it's to suction. I've never heard it referred to as "gravity."

Ditto.

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ok you are right I mixed terms up a little bit

suction = bubbling water in chamber (although we are switching to dry suction soon)

water seal/gravity same thing as far as I know...no suction

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hi

for us usually either connected to gravity or to low suction pressure,and clamp it before take out

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