phlebitis anyone

Phlebitis should be recorded every time it occurs.

Any signs of redness, paing, swelling or hard veins should be reported and charted. You must note when you noticed it, which vein, which arm and what you did about it.

Phlebitis happens for 3 main reasons...

chemical...which is that substance infusing is too irritating

bacterial....which is that the site wasn't properly cleaned prior to insertion or that there was a contaminate in the fluid or somewhere else along the way

mechanical...which is that one might have been to rough with insertion.

Hope this helps at all

well stated, Mandolyn. Good luck getting this taken care of!

Interventions to prevent:

- In line filters for phlebotoxic infusions (such as amiodarone etc)

- Using a central line for phlebotoxic infusions

- Strict asepsis with infusion sites and lines

If you end up with a reddened area around an infusion site, it's often smart to draw a line around it so that you can see if the area is spreading.