Pain sensation felt during morphine adminstration.

[saulgoodman]

Question:

Why does a patient feel abit of a pain sensation when morphine is adminstered via a butterfly catheter ? What could be wrong ?

[loricatus]

Are you referring to the histamine release reaction or to something else?

[BrnEyedGirl, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN]

Not sure I understand. What do you mean by a butterfly catheter? Morphine often burns if not diluted and pushed fast.

[Straydandelion]

The butterfly is relatively small yet some things pushed too rapidly can cause a burning sensation, try pushing slower.

[saulgoodman]

Are you referring to the histamine release reaction or to something else?

Could you kindly please elaborate on this?

[saulgoodman]

hi pp,

we are using the diluted morphine 10mg/ml ampoules. When i tried to adminster it via the sub q butterfly catheter, the patient move abit, and went " oh". And i asked if it hurts, she said "abit". What can you attribute this to? When i adminsterd n/s into it, she's ok.

[Dolce, RN]

There can be a local histamine response to the morphine. I have seen patients have IV sites that are reddened from the injection. Usually it goes away after a fairly short period of time. Benadryl is a commonly prescribed drug for this type of allergic response. I don't know that it has anything to do with the type of IV--I've never given drugs with a butterfly before and am not quite sure how a person does that.

[lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN]

We use lots of SQ ports like that. Mostly because we're mostly LPNs and can't push IV meds. But, yeah, push it slow. It does hurt going in if you push it too fast.

[GrumpyRN63, ADN, RN]

I always dilute w/NS before pushing morphine, some pts do have discomfort esp when we used to use it for PCA's, no problem now that everyone is on Dilaudid

[saulgoodman]

I always dilute w/NS before pushing morphine, some pts do have discomfort esp when we used to use it for PCA's, no problem now that everyone is on Dilaudid

the morphines are in ampoules, do you still draw them up and dilute it? with n/s or water for inj and how much?

[southernbeegirl, BSN, RN]

I am in recovery. SQ morhpine was my drug of choice. what the pt is feeling is the histamine reaction that gives you a "whoosh" when it's first adm. Morphine is actually not painful if given SQ and works as quickly as given IV so thats what they are feeling. hope this helps!

[GrumpyRN63, ADN, RN]

the morphines are in ampoules, do you still draw them up and dilute it? with n/s or water for inj and how much?

Ours aren't in ampules, they are in syringes for when we used to use carpujects. They are 1 cc, I take a 10 cc prefilled NS syringe, squirt out 1cc, pop off the needle of the MS syringe and draw up thru the rubber stopper, mix and good to go.