Hyponatremia and NG tubes to suction

Nurses General Nursing

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Why would a patient have hyponatremia when an NG tube is in place and connected to suction? I am working on practice questions to study for HESI and it was one of the questions but the rationale provided doesn't state why the patient would be hyponatremic.

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What are your ideas? Think about fluid and electrolytes.

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I know that water follows sodium so I was thinking that since the NG tube is pulling fluid out of the stomach to decompress it then the sodium is following it and that would lead to hyponatremia.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

What about the sodium blank blank?

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Specializes in ICU.

Remember that there is always electrolytes imbalance in suctioning coz ur removing all gastric content :)

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Thank you. I appreciate it.

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Sodium is in the gastric contents so removing it by NG tube via suction would cause the sodium levels to decrease.

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

and yet our NG tube pts have more of a focus on K+ They are usually on D5 1/NS with either 20/40 K

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Gastric contents actually contain very little k. It is the hypovolemia from suction that causes hypokalemia.

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Thank you.

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Thank you, appreciate it.

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