Interesting things about amiodorone

[Noney]

Hi every one.

I thought it might fun to list things we've observed or learned the hard way about different drugs. I thought we could start with amiodorone (sp). Then go on to something else.

1. Be careful if the patient is also on digoxin because Amio. Can increase a dig level by 100% in a few days.

2. When Amio infiltrates it isn't pretty

Everyone add something they experienced

[porcelina22]

These are probably all common knowledge to seasoned nurses, but I'm still in school and these have been bits of trivia I've picked up along the way:

Pt's will complain of everything looking "yellowish" (yellow aura) with Digoxin toxicity. That's not in our drug books!

Also, Metoprolol can cause 1st degree heart block, or make a first degree block progress to 2nd or 3rd degree block. (also NOT in my drug guide!!!)

Dilaudid is probably the scariest narc IMO. I've seen people go from a nice 16 resps/min down to 4 or 5/min from fairly small doses, and never right after it's given- it's always an hour or two later...

Metformin + Contrast = kidney failure.

chrissy