Truegem

Hello, I hope someone can answer this. The subject came up here at work, in the county jail. Does anyone know what they used to give to prisoners and the mentally ill in asylums to reduce their libido? It's considered unethical now. It's like, th...

I guess that must be it. I could swear there was another term. More of a classification of meds, you know, an example would be aphrodisiacs. "You guys put aphrodisiacs in the water." Rather than naming a specific one, such as oysters, or in this ...

I'm a little late to the party, but be very careful with anxiety. BP and P elevated, could be anxiety, but still could be MI. Diaphoretic could be anxiety, but still could be MI. Anxiety can be caused by the impending doom feeling with MI. SOB co...

I'm so sorry for the pain and loss.

The hospital will not admit MH patients with charges pending, but will they see them in the ER? They can really cause damage to themselves! Our policy is to send them out for clearance for mental health housing if they are banging their head. They...

Well, they are all patients. We recognize our inmates as patients, and people, and humans. We are courteous and polite. Remember, they each have their story and they may even be unjustly accused. I'm not saying become their friend or give them a ...

Geode, Librium for Opiate W/D? Why would they need a Benzo? Unless they are withdrawing from ETOH or Benzos. We give Tylenol, a muscle relaxer, Immodium and Tigan if necessary. We don't give Clonidine, although I have heard it helps.

Ok, let's talk. Do you feel that the 1 - 10 pain scale works in your institution?

The only meds we give for anxiety would probably be atarax. We use ativan for agitation only. But, yeah, it would probably have the same effect on me. The pain scale annoys me more because it's mandatory that no matter what the patient says, that's t...

We are not allowed to fall back on the patient's clinical signs of pain and discomfort because the BRN says that the pain is what they say it is, period. I completely disagree with this, because a. some either do not understand the pain scale even a...

Well, I guess what I mean is...don't you get an awful lot of 10's? Wow, we do. I even try to educate them and they still say 10 as they are sitting there smiling and everything.

The opening story is funny! Unfortunately most patients will say "yeah, that's how I feel, like someone smashed my balls with two bricks" as they are sitting there smiling, hads placed neatly on their lap, waving to a passerby. Um, Chas....I had a pa...

Let's say you forgot to chart something. Can't you call the charge nurse and have her write "dressing changed at 0300." per N. Jones, RN and then she signs her name too? (My example isn't the greatest, but you know what I mean.) I have heard that th...

What Oz said is exactly what I am saying...I do believe this is ok. I would have to know more about what the DON wrote and why and her role in the whole thing to give an opinion on it.

We get Opiate W/D, drug W/D, some post-op (not fresh post-op), quadriplegics, etc. We also house C-PAPs there. Not too busy, but it can be, depending on what happens. Reddell, sounds like you are working in two places at once! Yikes! =/

Wow, we only start IV's if we have summoned paramedics. We don't treat dehydration in-house. We only push a couple things in emergency situations.

We had an inmate complaining of something I cannot remember now. One nurse muttered "drug seeking" under her breath. It turned out she was very wrong. Things are not always as they seem. I have also learned that if you walk around talking about ...

VivalasViejas you should write a book!

My first job as an RN was in Oncology. Talk about work! It was crazy busy! Re; #6; while I cared deeply for my Oncology patients, what really got me was the denial the family's could be in. I wanted to scream "no, she's not going to get better, d...

My pet peeve is when people ask you a medical question that should be intended for a doctor, then, when you say you don't know, they say "you don't know? But you're a nurse!" Yeah and I went to NURSING school, not med school! I don't diagnose and I ...

I'm sure I've read somewhere that it's ok. The nurse doesn't need to have witnessed that she saw you, she is just writing what you tell her. She will indicate this in her charting. Also, you can co-sign it when you get back. I'm sure I read somew...

I found this: "The valproic acid drugs are used as non-opioid pain relievers. They belong to a general class of drugs called anticonvulsants. These drugs may be given along with pain medicines to help control neuropathic pain of cancer (numbness, tin...

I say go for it! Ya gotta be a little tough, though. And you can't be the type who needs to be friends with their patients because inmates are not your friends. You are friends with your coworkers. I have talked to some nurses who say they could ...

Yes, seizures and chest pain seem to be the most common types of things to "fake". Then there's my LOC story, above. I have never once seen a legitimate seizure from Opiate withdrawal, but many of them say they have seizures due to Heroin withdrawal...

I often feel like they are faking but I ALWAYS treat the problem as if they are not faking unless I feel very sure and have something to chart that will back me up. With any head injury, we ask them if they had a loss of consciousness. They almost ...