Drug Dosages Homework

[Brittanie1986]

I finished half of my homework but I am stuck on how to calculate these drug dosages or want to check my answers? Help?

1. Give Demerol 25 mg IM. Demerol 50mg/ml is available.

Answer is 0.5 ml?

2. Give Morphine 10 mg IM. Morphine gr 1/4 per ml is available.

Answer is 0.67 ml?

3. Give Atropine gr 1/150 IM. Atropine gr 1/75 per ml is available.

Answer is 1/2 ml or 0.5 ml?

4. Give Codeine gr 1/2 po. Codeine 15 mg tablets are available.

Answer is 2 tabs?

5. Give Codeine 20 mg IM. Codeine 60 mg/ml is available.

Answer is 0.33 ml?

6. Give Demerol 75 mg IM. Demerol 100 mg per 2 ml is available.

Answer 1.5ml?

7. Give Talwin 0.05 g po. Talwin 100 mg tablets are available.

8. Give Chloral hydrate gr viiss po at bedtime. Chloral hydrate 0.5 per tablet is available.

9. Give Gantrisin 0.5 g po. Gantrisin 250 per tablet is available.

10. Give Penicillin 300,000 units IM. Penicillin 450,000 u/ml in a 10 ml vial is available.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

One reason you took chemistry is to look for equivalents (how many mg in a kg, ml in a L...), and your pharm text should tell you about common drug forms. Some of these want to know if you know how to convert from gr (Grains or grams? What's the context? What's a usual dose? How is each usually written?) to mg, for example.

We'll help you, but show us your work so we can pick up any errors you might be making and help you figure it out.

[Brittanie1986]

I am in a Math for Health Occupations class to help get prepared for LPN classes next month. I am having trouble figuring out how to convert these and then I could most likely go from there if I knew how to "plug" them in. I was going to see if the other ones were right and if they were wrong, show you guys what I did so you can point out my mistakes. Hopefully that makes sense. I have been working on these a while and my brain is becoming foggy.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

It does make sense, but I told you what you needed to look up before proceeding, and I would like to see how you calculated the ones you did answer so I can see if your thought processes are correct.

To convert them, look up the table in your book that says things like, "gr 1 (one grain) = X mg" It has to be in there. If not, here's a link with PDF printable tables -- print it out, because you're going to need it for years through school and work. Grains is down the side of the page, and so is everything else.

Weight conversion calculators for imperial and metric units

[chare]

http://dmc122011.delmar.edu/math/MLC/Forms/ConversionSheet.pdf

Be aware that some of these conversions are approximations. Although one ounce is actually equal to 29.5735 mL, rounding to 30 works in nearly all conversions.

Converting grains can be somewhat more confusing. Although grain I equals 64.79891 mg (65 mg) you will also find it listed as 60 mg as well.

[Brittanie1986]

I am trying to upload a picture of my work but it won't let me.

[Brittanie1986]

Anyways, I will keep trying to upload the picture (maybe since I am new?), in the meantime I will keep looking at these other problems and put in the answers in the original post just in case someone wants to just give me a right or wrong on them.