How do you flush a JP drain???

Not that it isnt done with certain types of things, but in 14 years i have never had to nor seen a JP drain flushed/irrigated. Those drains are usually put in to drain operative fluids used to irrigate or to drain serrous fluids from the wound not for irrigation following surgery.

We did recently have an abdominal wound that the dr had put NG tubes into the wound and hooked up to IV bottles and connected to suction but that was a whole different thing. Like i said i guess it is possible to use the JP drain that way, but i havent ever seen it.

Have seen that order twice in the last two months. The tube coming out of the body has a little lever thing that rotates to lock or open and then the tube connects to the bulb. You fit the saline syringe to the port and make if I recall right you lock it so that the flush goes into the body and not the bulb.

Sorry for the cruddy description but its one of those things that you need to see done...

I've seen 2 different types of JP drains on our unit. I've only had the order to flush a JP twice, and the hook-ups were different. On the ones that needed to be flushed and aspirated, there was a sort of screw we could use. Most of the time we just strip the drains, though.

I did this one time--but not seeing it in front of me, it's hard to describe.

I think I disconnected below the stopcock, screwed the 10 cc syringe onto the tubing, flushed, then I somehow had to screw the tubing back together while the instilled saline was trying to flow back out. Didn't seem very sterile to me. One of the nurses who'd taken care of the pt showed me how.

Has someone else been able to clarify how to do this?

wow...I have never seen this type of JP drain.

There isn't alot of markings on the attachments. Don't even remember seeing a brand name. I've seen both where you flush into a port type device and the one where the tube comes away from the port to gain acess to the port.

But you flush and aspirate back into the syringe.

The type of drains used at the hospital where I work are called Van Sonnenberg drains. They must be flushed once every 8 hours with 10ml NS (if ordered by MD). As they are placed for abscess drainage, the fluid is often yucky. The tubing has a port and stopcock we do not have to disconnect anything.

Never seen this new type of drain. Never flushed a JP either. If drainage was slow, we were ordered to milk the tubing gently q 4 hours. Worked well with no trauma to patient.

We often have pigtail catheters (blue and other colors, 8 French and other sizes) also placed in abscesses or as nephrostomy tubes with a 3-way stopcock attached between the tube end and drainage bag.

If/when ordered it is usually to flush forward only with 10ml of NS. Once you've returned the lever on the stopcock to the position that allows the drainage to go back to the bag it drains without milking.