Practice question problems

[SimonTan]

[h=5]nausea, vomiting, nasogastric drainage, diarrhea, use of diuretics likely causes which electrolyte imbalance? Hyponatremia or hypokalemia? I think both of these answers are correct? Am I wrong?[/h]

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

Hypokalemia is more common with diuretic use.

[atom2013]

For me, they are both correct. But hypokalemia is what they consider according to kaplan and pda.

[Philly_LPN_Girl, LPN]

Hypokalemia especially with the diuretics and nasogastric tubes.

[belkreati]

Hypokalemia based on the diuretics and nasogastric drainage.

[itsbekah]

Both are correct unless it's a potassium sparing diuretic but Hypokalemia is more important because of it causes cardiac dysrhythmias. Kaplan says if you have four abnormal electrolytes always go for an abnormal potassium because it's more deadly compared to others. This is not true for all questions though.

[SimonTan]

Yep, Hypokalemia is what kaplan says is correct. And it just says diuretic, no mention of k-sparing. Doesn't diuretics and NGT both take out Na+? I looked up gastric juices it contains Na+.

[itsbekah]

Yeah but I'm not sure where you're going with this. Usually with NGT suction it causes metabolic alkalosis (think al-K-LOW-sis) so another major factor would be the loss of potassium.