I am studying for my final in Med Surg II and am totally confused about nitro. I am doing practice NCLEX questions from an NCLEX book. The question was "Which comment by the client would indicate to the nurse that the client understands how to take his sublingual nitroglycerine?" The first answer was "I will call 911 if the pain does not go away within 5 minutes after taking the medication." Wrong, I thought because I remembered in Pharmacology how my professor emphasized patients can take three tabs before calling 911. Anyways, my answer was wrong and the first answer was correct!
The rationale the book gave was "The EMS should be activated if the client's chest pain is not relieved within 5 minutes of taking the nitroglycerine." I thought that was odd, so I looked in my Med Surg textbook. It also said to call 911 after 5 minutes/one dose. So then I dug out my Pharmacology book. This is exactly what it says under patient education for nitro:
"Explain that if angina is not relieved, up to two more tablets may be taken; one 5 minutes after the first tablet and the other 5 minutes after the second tablet. Instruct the patient to go to the nearest emergency department if angina is not relieved after the above measures are taken."
Am I missing something here? These answers seem to be extremely different. My NCLEX book and Med Surg book are Mosby Elsevier and my Pharm book is Lippincott. Why would there be a discrepancy?