Is there a maximum amount of urine to remove at one time during an In and Out Cath?

allnurses Guide · Jan 2, 2012

I believe it is 1000 ml.

SkullCandy · Jan 2, 2012

Thank you for your reply NurseCard. I appreciate it.

bill4745, RN · Jan 2, 2012

I've always read that 1,000 ml is the most to be drained from an I & O cath or a foley insertion. With the foley, you clamp it off after 1,000 and wait some length of time (I just did a search and could not find a recommended time) before draining any more.

dishes, BSN, RN · Jan 2, 2012

No, there is not a maximum amount of urine to be removed at one time, this questions has been asked a few times on AN, see talaxandra's response #12 in this thread for the best literature supported answer to this question https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/straight-caths-clamp-474545-page2.html#post4253671

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jan 2, 2012

old wives' (or nurses') tale. dishes has given you the link to a great thread with lots of references if you want to read more. suggest you print it out, because this is an old myth that dies hard, only to be reincarnated over and over again.

talaxandra · Jan 2, 2012

Thanks, dishes - I was going to refer the OP to that thread but I see you saved me the trouble :)

Edited to add:

Just this week I had an elderly confused man who kept getting up to pee, with no success: bladder scan showed >999ml so I got the resident to catheterise (I can't catheterise if there's possible prosatomegaly). I got caught up in a MET call and didn't check on the patient for almost an hour, by which time he'd drained 2,250ml :eek: No wonder he was agitated! And the only effect of this massive drainage? He slept the rest of the night. No bladder spasm, no haematuria, no hypovolemic shock...

MN-Nurse, ASN, RN · Jan 2, 2012

I had an instructor tell me this while in nursing school, but I was unable to find the direction in any evidence based source.

She wasn't the best instructor I ever had, which is putting it VERY nicely.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jan 2, 2012

@talaxandra: that poor old guy! no wonder he slept so well!

PeepnBiscuitsRN · Jan 2, 2012

Whenever I straight cath someone or put in a foley, I immediately have to pee. I don't know if it's that I'm vicariously feeling the overwhelming relief too or what. I had a patient who had a foley in, and when I came on shift there was like a 1/4 tsp in the bag. Nothing. I figured that the aide had emptied it at the end of previous shift (they're supposed to do that). So I checked back about an hour later, hour and a half-nothing. Didn't like that, so I bladder scanned the guy (it wasn't leaking or pulled out) and scanned almost 1000ml. "WOW!" I thought, and so I tried to irrigate it- water went in, water did not come out. Hmmm...told my charge, and she said to just put a new one in. I pulled the old one, and the end was totally occluded with a giant blood clot (this guy was admitted with a UTI, he had like a perpetual UTI). When I got the cath in, and urine came into the tube, it was just red, and these huge clots were coming down, but I tell you, I emptied that bag within a half hour because it was full. There had to have been, close to 2000ml.

It didn't occur to me until much later "didn't the evening shift see something happening? I mean this couldn't have just popped up at 2300!" Sometimes the aides empty the bag and they don't enter the output in, so I wonder what was actually emptied prior to my shift. If anything was emptied at all.

And now I have to pee.

llg, PhD, RN · Jan 3, 2012

I learned 1000 back in nursing school in the 1970's. Old standards die hard. New evidence comes out, but people don't hear about it and still rely on what they learned in school.