how many times can a human be defibrillated?

Specialties CCU

Published

I've only been an ER nurse for a year, so i haven't seen much, most i've seen someone shocked is 4 times............... but

have you ever had a patient on your unit, say in cardiogenic shock, goes into long runs of vtach, and needs to be shocked 7-8 times every 18 hours for 6 days?????

I've attempted to research "effects of repeated defibrillation" with no luck. I only know that each shock is like running a mile to the body.

Just wondering if any of you CCU nurses have seen this, and if you've seen survivors.

Thanks in advance

Jenni

Two days ago we had a 60 something year/old man that came in with SOB and respiratory decompensation and was intubated. Towards the end he ran an extremely high fever and was vtach with a falling BP on pressors. The code leader began cardoversion with 50 J and he went into Vfib and than asystole followoing subsequent shocks. Defibrilated several times at 360 with intermitent epi administration with atropine but was asystole none the less and the code was called around 30 min. sucked.

We had a patient just yesterday who had a permanent pacer/defibrillator who received 90 shocks in a 4 hour period. She did great and went out to tele the next day...neato!

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