Ivp/ diluting med

[mamaRN-09]

I have posted in the student post but no answer. Hopefully get an answer here. This might seem like a "you should know the answer" but I have gotten myself confused. My question is for example: order Ranitidine 50mg IV. In the drug book states dilute in 20cc of NS. The pt has an IV TKO of LR running. If you dilute the med does it change the dosage. For example you would give 2.5cc because it is diluted in 20cc or the full 20cc? Also if you are going to give an IV med with fluid running do you always have to dilute the med? Please help I can't believe that I don't know this answer.

[Sue Damones]

You would give the full 20mL after diluting it. Your dose then would be 50 mg in 20 mL NS. If you put 50 mg in 100mL, the dose would still be the same, regardless of what you dilute in in.

To answer your second question, no, you do not need to dilute every med that you give with a running IVF.

Hope this helps.

[Be_Moore]

If you mix 50mg Ranitidine into 20ml of NS, you have to administer the full 20ml to give the full 50mg. If you only gave 2.5ml you would only be giving ~4mg IVP (not going to do the full set of dosage calcs). And if the med needs to be diluted, you should still dilute it even if an IV is running because the amount of fluid within iv tubing is not sufficient to meet most diluting recommendations. The amound of fluid in an entire length of IV tubing is probably less than 5mls.

[PICNICRN, BSN, RN]

If you have say 50 mg of any drug and you dilute it in any amount of NS- you still have 50 mg of the drug.

If you gave 1cc- you would only be giving 2.5mg.

[BrnEyedGirl, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN]

Your making this much harder than it needs to be. Nursing students almost always freak out over the math! It really isn't that hard! Go back to when you first learned basic algebra,....if you need to eat 10 apples today, and your Mom decides to use those 10 apples to make an apple pie,..how much of the pie to you need to eat to still eat your 10 apples? See,...it isn't that hard,...10 apples are 10 apples even if they're in a whole pie or you blend them up into 3 cups of applesauce!

[mamaRN-09]

Thanks for all of your reply's. I had my moment of DUH. But now it is over.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

I would call pharmacy and tell them to stop being lazy and send me a piggyback!

Just to lighten the mood!

Tait

[cardiacRN2006, ADN, RN]

Luckily for us, our Zantacs are loaded premixed in our pyxis!