Wolfbiologist

Thank you for that information. I have a close relative who has been telling me she doesn't want to take that drug any more. Assuming her doc thinks stopping is a good idea, she'll be stopping. I will find the articles you refer to for her. Knowing my cousin, she'll bring them to her appointment with her doc.

You need to understand the view of the patient. If they brought themselves in, they may still have been unaware how they would be treated. Stripped of their clothes in the presence of 2 female nurses can be very traumatic, especially if they were forced to strip or even worse, held down and stripped. Humiliating. After that, they'll be agitated from the humiliation. If you restrain them, they will feel like trapped animals. If you force meds on them or inject them against their will, they will probably lose any sense of right behavior. Imagine all of that happening to someone who was brought in against their will? Yikes! That's a recipe for serious problems. Have you ever tried to capture a cornered and injured animal? Trust me on this, I have the scars to prove it. Even a cute little wolf pup can and will take a bite out of you. On the other hand, if none of those things happened to your patient and they still hit you, file charges. They have it coming.

I have read many many accounts of taking a person off of antidepressants or antianxiety drugs cold turkey. The effects of the withdrawal can be devastating and mimic the original symptoms of the diagnosis. Not "decompensation", the brain is simply learning to control emotions on its own again... naturally. Best to slowly taper off the dosage. My personal experience with cold turkey zoloft withdrawal gives me firsthand experience. After a couple of months, the withdrawal symptoms subsided and I was entirely fine and in no need of any drugs at all. Would have been better to follow my doctor's advice and ramp the dosage down to zero over a couple months. Turns out that the doc should never have forced the garbage on me in the first place. She knew of the side effects but was emphatic that the benefit would outweigh the harm. She was wrong.

Drugs were keflex and Ambien. I took too much keflex in error. My doc told me later that keflex can cause hallucinations. Neither my son or I knew this. The boy panicked and called 911 when I was talking to people who were not there. I was as placid as can be when at the psych ER although I do not remember it. Nurse told me later that they just put me in a room to sleep. Nobody took my pajamas off or locked up my slippers. I was not violent or threatening according to nurse. I was compliant. When my doctor got to hospital, the drugs has been metabolized and I was just sleepy but wondering how the hell I wound up there. Had I been stripped or restrained, I we would still be dealing with the damage to my mind. That did not happen because the nurses exercise good judgement.

Oh my God. Just shoot me before I ever wind up unlucky enough to be under your care. I had a really bad reaction to a drug prescribed by a doc. It made me (a fully normal person) behave strangely enough for my son to call the paramedics. I wound up in a psych ER for 8 hours until my doctor came and rescued me. If I was in your ER, I would be SO damaged by you. Do me a favor and retire from nursing... please?

I would refuse a chaperone because of a history of childhood abuse where I was a child and simultaneously abused by 2 adults. 2:1 situations where I am receiving intimate care produce more anxiety in me than I can handle... even when I know and trust the caregiver. I can't control the situation or the anxiety so I simply avoid. Under general anesthesia, I am fine though. Even under light anesthesia for a colonoscopy, I am fine. The doc knows of my history and gives me some anti-anxiety med before they take me in to the procedure room. I am on his 3 year schedule due to a history of polyps.

One thing to keep in mind (my brother was very sick in ICU last year), I have seen this scenario from the family perspective and knew the patient as well as a brother can. The delirium is not the patient's fault. It's yours. By you, I mean the ICU itself. My brother was a completely reasonable, calm, sane, and bright person before the ICU. After 3 weeks of sedation, pain meds... etc, he behaved like the patient in the OP. Finally they stopped the drugs (as suggested by many responses) than caused much of the problem. He did have a UTI from the foley and when that was addressed, a lot of the delirium dissipated. He was in far less pain and could sleep. He came home physically well but his ICU induced PTSD has kept him from functioning well at work. He isn't the same guy. I saw a dedicated nursing staff that made him well BUT lacked some compassion. Comments were made to me suggesting his delirium was a defect of his biology rather than his treatment. Nurses were frustrated with HIM rather than the care plan for him. Be patient with your delirious patient. They need your compassion and your creative approaches to getting those nasty chemicals out of their bodies. Help them sleep naturally, protect their dignity, and find the cause of those damned infections.

Gosh, if a nurse came into my hospital room with a recording device to get a video record while doing anything to me except change an IV bag, I'd refuse whatever they were trying to do. Who knows who would see such a recording? How would I know how securely it was stored and who would have access. Imagine it showing up on YouTube? If any part of my body was recorded, the hospital would hear from my lawyer. Imagine someone actually recording the invasion of my dignity? What a horrid idea. If you are that afraid of an unjust accusation, bring a chaperone. Of course, I'd refuse the service in that case too. For me, it's all about trust. If you trust me, I will NOT abuse that trust. If you don't trust me, you're probably making a generalization about me based on my gender, culture, or appearance. I am a trustworthy person who respects the nursing profession. I am an easy and cooperative patient unless you are doing something that makes no sense and you haven't adequately explained why you are doing it... If it will hurt or violate my dignity, you better have a darn good explanation for the procedure.

As a male with the experience of a mere 10 day foley, these things are horrid. The bladder spasms almost ended me. Pain from a spasm caused me to faint, fall, and smack my head on a concrete floor. That sucked. Then when a nurse finally removed the wretched thing, I was unable to speak... let alone breathe... due to the pain of removal. Kill me before you try to insert one of those damn things again. Otherwise, I will fight you to the the death if you try to shove one of those things in me.

On behalf of an anonymous nurse to whom I will be eternally grateful: She is an ER nurse who treated me after the EMT crew brought me on a fall where I landed on my head on concrete tile. I had TURP and was released next day because my fu$#i g insurance insisted. Got home and could not fill my Foley bag. Urine collected in bladder and became so painful that on standing, I blacked out and hit the tile. When I was conscious again, crawled to my mobile phone and hit 911. They brought me to ER. The blessed nurse un-kinked the Foley house and my bladder emptied. Then they took me to the imaging machine to get my head examined. The nurse told me that the best thing that happened for her that day was seeing my face when she fixed the hose. She also gave me a bath... something that was supposed to be done in the hospital but wasn't. She was particularly concerned about the anchor point on upper thigh for the tube and the cleanliness of the glans. There was evidence that it had not been cared for post-OP. Anyway, she said she really was very happy to help.

I have been hospitalized several times and have had 4 operations. I love and appreciate my nurses... all of them. Even the ones who woke me after almost no sleep to subject me to those humiliating and humbling bed baths. Yeah, I even loved those nurses. They were keeping me healthy and comfortable, I get it now. I can say that now but at the time, I was Mr. Grumpy. God bless you, one and all. I have been considering a 2nd career as an RN but as one of you pointed out... I'm not cut out for it. Too sensitive despite the desire to do kind stuff to help suffering people. P.S. please put a pillow over my face while sleeping rather than doing that bed bath thing again.

From my PT perspective, I have no problem wearing just underpants in an exam room with doctors or nurses of either gender... with 3 caveats. 1. Underpants must be boxers. Prefer white but a low contrast plaid works. The fly can't be too loose or the end of my private situation could poke out inadvertently. 2. Do not make me lower them or remove them. If you must force this on me, only the doctor can be in the room. MA - exit post haste. 3. If #2 is forced on me, don't touch me or you're going to see my blood pressure rise to unhealthy levels. Violation of any of these maxims and you have a really uneasy patient who isn't likely to cooperate. But hey, I'm just a victim of abuse in my childhood so give me some slack. With this said, I may not actually be nursing material after all. I cannot see myself putting someone like me through this kind of thing.... Excellent revelation!! I'm so clever ? to come here to learn a little about your life as a nurse. My hat is off to you who can do it. Prolly, I need to re think my career swerve.

From a male patient's perspective: I had a female PCP who unfortunately transferred her feelings for her ex (he was same age as me and similar in other respects) and was verbally inappropriate with me. She reminded me that she was single a couple of times, told me my chart made great "bedtime reading" after a physical exam in which she manipulated my genitals in a medically necessary way, hiked up her skirt to show me a contusion she got in a bicycle crash... and on and on. Her career is perfectly safe because no matter what, I would NEVER lodge a complaint. Mostly to preserve my own privacy but also... there were no witnesses. And no, I still firmly refuse a chaperone when one is forced on me. I would walk out of an appointment rather than have a 3rd party listen to my very personal health issues. Certainly there would not be a chaperone in the room if the doctor wanted me to submit to an intimate exam. The thought of a witness to the indignity makes my skin crawl. Despite her behavior, she is a damn good doctor and worked hard to get where she is. It was best for me to man up and shut up. It cost me a great deal of psychological damage which would have been worse if I spoke up about it. The point is, most medical professionals are safe from complaints by us guys. We don't talk in the case of genuine misbehavior, let alone fantasy misbehavior that may have happened only in our minds. The nurse or doctor would have to really screw up before I ever said anything. By the way, I have been cared for by a great many nurses - male and female. Not one of you has ever done anything to me that is even vaguely questionable. I TRUST nurses... period. Doctors, on the other hand...

Hi there, I have many years of experience as a patient and as a retired IT person, am watching my son's RN career with a bit of jealousy. He is encouraging me to at least train as a CNA but prolly to go to my local community college to get my RN training... and then start a 2nd career. I'm on this site to see if I can learn a little bit about what you experienced nurses deal with daily. Can I hack it as a nurse? Dunno. We'll see. Meanwhile, what Biker53 said rings true. As a patient, I've almost always had an opportunity to ask personal questions of the doctor after the "chaperone" leaves the room. Occasionally, the doctor can't/won't excuse the scribe. In those cases, I refrain from asking my question. Usually this isn't a problem because I will have a chance later for privacy with the doctor. One time, my failure to ask the question turned out to be a really bad thing for me. It would be great if nurses and/or doctors made time to have 1:1 with patients at every visit so the patient is free to talk. Just my 2cents :-)