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Discussion

Quick ? about diuretics

I have my med admin test tomorrow and I'm doing drug sheets for the drugs on the list we've been given. One is a loop diuretic. One of the things we need to know is the adverse effects and how we monitor/correct them.

So on my list of adverse effects for Lasix is hypokalemia - so my (probably stupid) question is do we monitor potassium levels with blood work? Or is it always given with potassium chloride?

I ask because on my "physicians orders" it has potassium chloride. I didn't know if it was standard to give the two together.

My initial thoughts were to monitor potassium levels, but I'm still a fetus and I don't know much yet.

Thanks in advance!

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    You might not always give lasix with potassium. It really is up to physician preference. If the patient is getting a proper diet and their potassium is 4.4, then supplemental potassium isn't really indicated. I believe the textbook answer would be to monitor labs because you wouldn't just assume that their potassium would drop.

    Also, someone taking a loop diuretic with a potassium of 5.7 would definitely not be given potassium replacement.

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    You are correct, you should monitor the potassium levels when giving a loop diuretic. If your patient has an order for supplemental potassium, go track and trend their potassium levels for the past few days and I bet you'll find that they had an abnormal low result :)

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    Perfect, thank you both!

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    On a side note, your school should also be teaching you the generic names of the drugs instead of the brand names. NCLEX changed a while back and you'll no longer see brand names. So instead of Lasix, you'll see Furosemide.

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    On a side note, your school should also be teaching you the generic names of the drugs instead of the brand names. NCLEX changed a while back and you'll no longer see brand names. So instead of Lasix, you'll see Furosemide.

    Wow, since when did they change that? My professor said we should know both the generic and brand name for NCLEX.

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    Wow, since when did they change that? My professor said we should know both the generic and brand name for NCLEX.

    I think they changed it about a year ago. My school had no clue... smh

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    Wow, since when did they change that? My professor said we should know both the generic and brand name for NCLEX.

    I'm not sure exactly, but I started nursing school in January 2016 and our instructors told us to only expect generic names. They were right. I just took my NCLEX this past Friday, had 265 questions with many drug questions (no drug calc, though) and they were all generic names. I didn't have one drug question that had a brand name in it.

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    • Author
    On a side note, your school should also be teaching you the generic names of the drugs instead of the brand names. NCLEX changed a while back and you'll no longer see brand names. So instead of Lasix, you'll see Furosemide.

    We are taught the generic name. I just used the brand name because it's a drug I'm familiar with it. I should be using generic though, since that's what we're tested on, so thanks for reminding me :)

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