Outrageous lab results

[shannonRN]

what are some of the labs that you have seen that are just totally out of whack?

the one that comes to my mind was a hgb of 2.1! i don't remember the hct...patient was a jehovah's witness. she was discharged with a hgb of 2.8.

[NannaNurse]

WOW:eek: I've never seen a Glucose, or heard of, one that high!! >1000? or even 1200? Man oh man! Took my mom to the ER before she passed away. Her glucose was 535....that was her diagnosis factor!

Had a patient with PT of 113.3 and one had INR of 35. I was afraid to touch him! (Doing Home Health at the time) The HHA had just finished shaving him.....with a non-electric razor!!!....before I got there w/results.

OMG.. are we crazy????

[Agnus]

ETOH .8

Sad thing she was one of our nurses. Known to be an alcoholic she claimed she doesn't drink. "Someone spiked the punch." She, "only had 4 cups of punch" She was vented. No longer works for us, (not over this incident). Still in denial.

[RNforLongTime]

Admitted a pt into ICU a few weeks ago with a K+ of 9.2--the lab ran it three times!!! Dialysis pt who hadn't skipped a treatment. Had to have emergency Dialysis though.

[samrn32]

platlets 4

sodium >190

wbc 0.0

glucose >1400

wbc 81

[kids]

CBG: 21-27 on 3 different machines...walking, talking and (gasp) passing meds...no sx except irritable.

Was me, learned the hard way not to forget to eat for 2-3 days!

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

Glucose of ONE!

I posted this on the sci.med.nursing newsgroup and got some nice replies.

In the past week we have had a patient who is an alcoholic. He was found by

>EMS to be totally unresponsive. A fingerstick glucose did not register on

>their glucometer so they drew a red top and then gave him 2 amps of D50. He

>aroused somewhat but remained semi conscious. When they arrived at the ER

>the red top was analysed and showed a glucose of 1 (one) !!

>On the floor q 1 hour fsbs were in the 29-39 range on .45 saline and in the

>60-90 range on D5 .45.

>

>No definite cause was determined but the patient developed a seizure

>disorder and was discharged on Hosp. day 7 on Depakote for the seizures.

>Any comments?

Hopefully, someone thought to give the patient some thiamine somewhere

along the way, otherwise the seizures would be complicated with

Wernicke's encephalopathy...

Question 1: Were the seizures caused by the alcohol or by the low

blood sugar or both?

Question 2: What was his blood alcohol on admission?

Question 3: Why wasn't this chap on D10 or better? Lowest blood

glucose I've ever seen was in the low teens, and that's scary enough.

ck

[kewlnurse]

#1 Could be both

a

#3 D10 has to be tapered off like hyper al and i have noticed most md's hesitant to order it

[bjpeace]

Originally posted by misti_z

H&h 3/6

Creat 31

Potassium 9.1

Phos 15

Glucose 19 and >1000

I work renal. We see alot of craziness!!!!

I've worked in a renal unit also, yes craziness is abundant! We had a new admit walk in one evening with a creatine of 16 ! He denied any and all complaints. His wife told us he had been "a little off" that week....... a LITTLE ?!?!?!

[bjpeace]

one more quickie to add......

Hemodialysis patient last spun on a Friday, hit the ER on Sunday late evening with EMS pacing him. K+ was 9.9 , HR was in 30's before pacer applied. After 15 mins of emergent dialysis the pacer was able to be pulled off. The culprit of this episode in a usually compliant dialysis patient?...........He had ketchup on his french fries at an afternoon church social!!!!!! How much he never really told.

[LasVegasRN]

I was called back in to my doctor's office to repeat lab work. I asked what the problem was, they said my K+ was 9.1. The lab repeated it on the same sample, still came back the same. BUN & creat were normal, so was the liver panel.

I told the nurse who drew the second sample that I wouldn't be sitting here if my K+ was really that high, unless I'm dead and don't know it yet!!!???