Lovenox injection

[Lewis35]

If you have an order for lovenox injection 1mg per kg q 12 hrs and say this patient weighs 173 lbs available is 80mg/0.8 ml how many ml would you administer? I used dimensional analysis and come up with 0.7863ml rounded to nearest hundredth 0.79ml but with lovenox syringes would you round up to 0.8 ml and administer 80mg? I'm not familiar with the graduations on the syringe. I'm just not sure how to round when it come to lovenox syringes

[LovingLife123]

Is this real life or homework?

[Lewis35]

Is this real life or homework?

This is for homework but I would like to know the answer to both

[Lewis35]

I have another question let's say you have a lovenox vial 300mg/3ml and an order for 1mg/kg injection and the patient weighs 250 lbs would you administer two injections of 0.57ml or one injection of 1.1ml?

[Kallie3006, ADN]

your instructor should direct you on what place value they are wanting you to round to which would be helpful for the first questions in regards to the 80mg prefilled syringe- clinically the pharmacist would typically dose these patients giving you the mg and ml to be given, but I personally would round to the 0.8ml if there was not any contraindications for the medication.

on the 2nd hypothetical questions what would make you want to give 2 shots instead of just 1?

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

You should follow your instructor's direction about how to round properly. In my own practice, it would very much depend upon the actual markings upon the syringe. I would generally suspect that you wouldn't be able to measure any amount smaller than the hundredths so in that instance, I'd round to the hundredths.

As to the second question, you should also follow your instructor's direction. If your instructor states it's OK to give >1 mL in a subQ injection, then you could go ahead and do it. If you cannot or you want to be (perhaps a little more precise in dosing) you might consider giving the injection in a divided dose - and those doses don't have to be equal... so .56 mL and .57 mL is 1.13 mL...

Follow the instructor's advice/teaching!

[twinmommy+2, ADN, BSN, MSN]

This is as much about knowing the quantity of the drug as it is knowing the drug itself and how it comes. Lovenox injections are in prefilled syringes, with the largest dose being 120mg per my experience. 80mg syringe is common so you wouldn't have to remove any of the drug from the syringe before giving it.

Here is a good site regarding the information for Lovenox Bad Request

As a side note, I didn't know there was a vial for Lovenox that holds 300mg. Interesting.

[LovingLife123]

The reason I asked if it was homework is because in the real world, the physician prescribes the amount given and in this case they would just prescribe the 80. I've only had two or three times where I have had to do a partial dose and adjust the prefilled lovenox syringe.

For homework, you have to figure it out and be exact. Follow your rules on rounding.

[RNSAINT41]

I read that some facilities round lovenox to nearest 10mg? is this common everywhere

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

I read that some facilities round lovenox to nearest 10mg? is this common everywhere

I have not had to give Lovenox in a while. If I remember correctly, the dose is rounded to the nearest 1 mg, which would be to the nearest one-hundredth of an mL. In the real world, there is almost always going to be a small amount of error in getting the exact correct amount when pushing out a med to get to that precise an amount.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Moved to nursing student assistance forum.

When I Rx lovenox I do round it .

[ThePsychWhisperer, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP]

I read that some facilities round lovenox to nearest 10mg? is this common everywhere

It is actually correct pharmaceutical practice to round Lovenox UP to the nearest tenth, no matter the dose. Ex: dose calls for 7.4mg of Lovenox, it should be rounded to 8.0. Very little known blurb about Lovenox.