Furosemide & KCl

Nurses Medications

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I'm a med aide (and future nurse). I noticed my patient was just put on 120mg QD furosemide for Dx edema. He is not on any KCl. Also, this man is a frequent imbiber of alcohol and coffee. Should I be concerned about catastrophic hypokalemic? My nurse doesn't seem interested at all by this, so I wanted to ask here.

Specializes in ICU, psych, corrections.

I found this while searching for posts related to Lasix. We have a patient (I work in a prison infirmary) who is currently on 80mg Lasix IV BID and 120mg Lasix PO BID. This seems like a LOT to me and after reading this thread, I was right. Also, he is not on any kind of potassium replacement but he also has renal insufficiency and will be heading to dialysis in the future (near future). I seem to remember from my very short time as a dialysis nurse that we were always concerned about patients' potassium getting to high when having renal insufficiency/being on dialysis. Could this be why the doctor has not ordered any potassium? We have orders to stop the Lasix once the weight is under 210lbs so it's not an indefinite or long term order.

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