Precedex

[RNFELICITY]

Our pulmonologist is on a crusade to stop the usage of diprivan in our facility and switch to precedex.

Anyone have any pros or cons to this med?

In my limited usage of it, it does not seem to have the same sedative affect that diprivan does and my patients are bucking their vents.

Any info would be appreciated.

Pharmacy is complaining because they say that it is very expensive and that every 50 ml bag they mix up is 300 bucks.

[OkieICU_RN]

Hospitals I've worked have never used it. One problem too is that it is not supposed to be used longer than 24 hours. I have heard it's used a fair amount with fresh open hearts.....but they tend to come off the vent by the next AM.

I'd like to hear from people who use it regularly too.

[Endorn2012]

We use precedex on patients that have had difficulty extubating because of anxiety. Some of our attendings like to use it while others don't and they'll prefer to use very low dosages of diprivan to extubate. we have seen less success with it than we would have thought. Also the whole 24 hour thing makes it more complicated to use.

[RNFELICITY]

We use precedex on patients that have had difficulty extubating because of anxiety. Some of our attendings like to use it while others don't and they'll prefer to use very low dosages of diprivan to extubate. we have seen less success with it than we would have thought. Also the whole 24 hour thing makes it more complicated to use.

Our pulmonologist is using it far longer than 24 hours

[Cindy-san]

They use it a lot longer than 24hrs at my job too. I've had pts on it for days.

It's not a knock-out drug like Propofol, it's more of a "calming" drug as my ex-preceptor explained it. And there's no respiratory depression, so you can extubate with it on, which is nice.

There are cardiac adverse effects, like bradycardia, hypotension and AFib.