Nurses ignoring nausea complaints

Specialties Geriatric

Published

I am a new nurse. I work LTC. Have a resident who had been complaining of "upset stomach" for 2-3 weeks now. No emesis and afebrile. Eats about 25% of meal.. Zofran often with little effect. Another nurse that rotates with me on the same shift questioned why I asked the doctor for either lab work or medication check to find the source. The other nurse also said "for God sake's she drinks coffee and eats those snacks that are in her room, I think she is crazy." This upsets me. Thoughts from all of you??????? Meanwhile, drawing some labs today.

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Sounds very much like one of our little ladies, and yes, many of our staff now have agreed it is likely a behavior. However, we did run labs, and have her and her medications evaluated before noting it off as possible behavior. Never hurts to rule out and not just ignore.

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For what it's worth, I have had a few ladies who would regularly c/o GI upset and would in fact be seen eating chocolates and cookies all day & night... Obv if this is not the case then the MD should be made aware and tests should be done.

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Thanks guys. The MD did order some tests, and on my day off, she was found to have HBG of 6! She ended up getting 6units. I am not sure how she was "walking and talking" but she was, with no other complaints or symptoms. !!!!!

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Good for you for acknowledging her complaints! Something should always be done. The physician should have been notified sooner, resident should not have been complaining for 2-3 weeks. Even if there ends up being nothing wrong, notifying the physician so that further testing can be done is NEVER wrong.

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Review of meds for nausea is a frequent request I get. There are a lot of meds that can contribute to nausea, and there is no shortage of medication use in LTC :) We need to exhaust all possible causes, nausea is awful - good work. I hope they weren't on an NSAID like Ibuprofen, Aleve, Mobic, Celebrex etc...

Eric Christianson, Pharm.D.

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