Post op fever

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

I had a patient today that was a multiple GSW to the chest. He was tachycardic and febrile after surgery. His temp was 39.4 Celsius. I asked the residents if they wanted to pan culture him but they said no. Is it common for a patient not even 24 hours post op to develop a fever?

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

Just spoke with the doctor, didn't realize that it was common for postoperative patients to have fevers.

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Specializes in Day Surgery, Agency, Cath Lab, LTC/Psych.

Yes, it is common for post-op patients to have low grade fevers.

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Specializes in Nursing Home ,Dementia Care,Neurology..

I suppose ,logically ,you think of all the foreign bodies that enter the body from a GSW.As well as the bullet/pellets themselves you also have skin,clothing and anything else that got in the way of the bullet so it wouldn't be that surprising to have an infection of some kind.

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Specializes in MICU, SICU, PACU, Travel nursing.

Yeah I am sure you already got the answer to this, but it is pretty common. Although 39.4 seems a bit higher than most, but that could be due to the nature of the injuries I guess.

I think its because of the bodies initial inflammatory response to the surgery. But doing an IS sometimes really helps with the temp, but I am not sure exactly why it helps with it to be honest.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

The patient's wound was pretty traumatic, he did have to have part of his right lung removed.

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Yup something with relaxing of lungs under anesthesia.. nothing lots of IS and walking won't cure. So maybe part of lung removal has more play into it being higher just more of a response.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

Forgot to add that the patient is intubated so no IS for him.

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Most common causes of fever post operatively include anesthesia reaction (rare, early), atelectasis (common), DVT/PE. Two or three days after surgery, pan culture. First 48 hours, it is something else.

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Specializes in ICU/ ED Trauma/ Surgical/ Nursing Sup.

Hi

The bodies response to trauma, blood products during surgery and invasive procedures like chest tubes etc can all cause fever immediate post-op. They also do a lot of third spacing immediately post op----

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Specializes in med surg.

5W's of post op fever:

Walk ( are they OOB and ambulating)

Wind ( Are they using IS)

Water( dehydrate)

WOund( infected)

Wonder Drugs

Easy to remember and try to find the cause of post op fever

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