What Baffles You?

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So I have come across this a few times. I am holding a straw to a persons lips and they drink and drink and drink and pretty soon they are waving their hands for me to stop. Stop what?! You don't have to keep sucking on the straw just because it is in your mouth. I think the universal sign of I'm done please remove the straw should be to stop sucking on it and open your mouth! I have had a few people have to catch their breath and make comments about me giving them too much! What? I don't get it.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.
Also please explain to me why any one under thirty needs dilaudid every 2 hours but the 90 year old woman I admitted will be throwing up from pain before she will take anything?

Also clumsiness I trip over everything it's so annoying

For the same reason a 90-year old will demand pain meds every 2 hours, while a 25-year old will be vomiting from pain before asking for anything.

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Specializes in Pulmonary, Lung Transplant, Med/Surg.
How about 20/10 ??????

While I agree with 99% of the complaints here I have to say some pain truly IS off the charts.

Kidney stone pain.

I've said 12/10 more than once to get my point across. Also has an ER physician question my pain because I didn't look in pain. At that point I had gone from Jamaica to Miami and been in pain for over 20 hours.

Sorry just my personal rant but I really hate pain complaints.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

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While I agree with 99% of the complaints here I have to say some pain truly IS off the charts. Kidney stone pain. I've said 12/10 more than once to get my point across. Also has an ER physician question my pain because I didn't look in pain. At that point I had gone from Jamaica to Miami and been in pain for over 20 hours. Sorry just my personal rant but I really hate pain complaints. Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com
Argh! No- the pain cannot be "off the charts." If 10/10 is the very WORST pain you've ever had/ you can imagine (depending on who's asking) then it CANNOT be higher than 10. Just like when someone says that they've given 110% ... This makes me CRAZY! It's NOT possible to give more than 100%!! Look, I'm all for dramatic effect and the use of hyperbole when the situation calls for it. I've been known to describe my own headaches as "an ice pick being driven into my left eye with a hammer wielded by the world's most enthusiastic carpenter." But numbers are numbers. People who rate pain anything higher than 10, and people who give/try/go 110% make me want to yell "don't you understand basic math???"
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Specializes in PCCN.

what baffles me? How some pts can be so "uninformed". Had a chf pt, age early 50's. Has been told numerous times that low sodium is important to the diet, so you dont overload the heart with water retention.Like I say, has been told numerous times, yet gets angry of whats on hospital food tray, and has had family and friends bring in food- red lobster, kfc, etc . Then c/o feeling very bloated to the point of discomfort afterwards.Wants more "latex" ( lasix) has been corrected a couple times too.

Why......insert beating dead horse icon here.

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Specializes in Pulmonary, Lung Transplant, Med/Surg.
Argh! No- the pain cannot be "off the charts." If 10/10 is the very WORST pain you've ever had/ you can imagine (depending on who's asking) then it CANNOT be higher than 10. Just like when someone says that they've given 110% ... This makes me CRAZY! It's NOT possible to give more than 100%!! Look, I'm all for dramatic effect and the use of hyperbole when the situation calls for it. I've been known to describe my own headaches as "an ice pick being driven into my left eye with a hammer wielded by the world's most enthusiastic carpenter." But numbers are numbers. People who rate pain anything higher than 10, and people who give/try/go 110% make me want to yell "don't you understand basic math???"

Wow....

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Specializes in Cardiac step-down, PICC/Midline insertion.

When every single time you go in a patients room no matter what it's for, you hear......"well...since you're here I may as well try to go to the bathroom" Ugh!!!! And it's always the little old ladies that take 30 minutes to get out of bed that do this! Then after the entire ordeal of getting out of bed, putting on shoes, moving the bedside table, IV pole, and whatever other crap is in the way, getting the walker and going in the bathroom and finally sitting down...then they sit there and sit there...and NOTHING HAPPENS. Then you go back to bed, put everything back in it's place, cover them up, get them comfortable and by this time you're just desperate to get out of the room to go give your meds that are now late, draw labs, etc and then......"well....I feel like I need to go to the bathroom again". &@$%!!!

Just to clarify....I don't mind getting people up to the bathroom but why do patients feel like they have to TRY instead of just waiting until they need to go and use the CALL LIGHT??

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Specializes in RN.
When every single time you go in a patients room no matter what it's for, you hear......"well...since you're here I may as well try to go to the bathroom" Ugh!!!! And it's always the little old ladies that take 30 minutes to get out of bed that do this! Then after the entire ordeal of getting out of bed, putting on shoes, moving the bedside table, IV pole, and whatever other crap is in the way, getting the walker and going in the bathroom and finally sitting down...then they sit there and sit there...and NOTHING HAPPENS. Then you go back to bed, put everything back in it's place, cover them up, get them comfortable and by this time you're just desperate to get out of the room to go give your meds that are now late, draw labs, etc and then......"well....I feel like I need to go to the bathroom again". &@$%!!!

Just to clarify....I don't mind getting people up to the bathroom but why do patients feel like they have to TRY instead of just waiting until they need to go and use the CALL LIGHT??

Obsession....

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Specializes in ICU.

HeartRN, this is the one that gets me, too! Or, they will use the call bell, and insist they "need the nurse." Absolutely will not say what they need the nurse for, you go to their room, and all they want to do is pee! Takes all that time for something that does not require "the nurse." It usually happens while I am right in the middle of something else, like starting an IV. Yes, I get the "well while you're in here" thing a lot, too.

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This happened last night...

After-hours bed move, sending patient out to the medical ward from telemetry in order to bring an admit up to telemetry. Two of us nurses did the move right at shift change.

We were moving the lady in her bed and trying to make the awkward corner out of the ICU area into the other room (this involves about three sharp turns). This lady, who was visiting someone else on the medical ward, looks at the lady in bed and thinks she might know her. So while we are actively trying to manoeuvre the bed, the lady comes up right to the bed, and asks "is that so n so..?" Then when it was So n So, she stands there, in the way, as we are moving the bed, trying to talk to the lady.

Seriously, she could see we were moving the bed and kept standing right in the way, not even taking the hint when we didn't stop trying to turn the bed. Her persistence almost got her wedged between the bed and the wall, and the other nurse had to step around her. Finally I had to ask her to please step out of the way so we could get the bed by, and she walked off in a huff as though I had grievously insulted her.

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Argh! No- the pain cannot be "off the charts." If 10/10 is the very WORST pain you've ever had/ you can imagine (depending on who's asking) then it CANNOT be higher than 10. Just like when someone says that they've given 110% ... This makes me CRAZY! It's NOT possible to give more than 100%!! Look, I'm all for dramatic effect and the use of hyperbole when the situation calls for it. I've been known to describe my own headaches as "an ice pick being driven into my left eye with a hammer wielded by the world's most enthusiastic carpenter." But numbers are numbers. People who rate pain anything higher than 10, and people who give/try/go 110% make me want to yell "don't you understand basic math???"

May you never have kidney stones, prolonged labour with a difficult delivery, or a GI bleed. Pain where you wish for death so that it will end.

Numbers are numbers but when you are in agony they are just that numbers that mean nothing to you.

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May you never have kidney stones, prolonged labour with a difficult delivery, or a GI bleed. Pain where you wish for death so that it will end.

Numbers are numbers but when you are in agony they are just that numbers that mean nothing to you.

I once had a bleeding duodenal ulcer. My provider told me she never saw one like it before-it was huge. Took about 2 months for someone to diagnose it and let me tell you, it was two months of horrible pain that definitely was a 10 or even more. I've only had one other type of pain that rivals it. Both times I could have cared less what it was on the pain scale-all I knew it was the worst pain I ever had and please help me.

Anyone who gets that worked up over people and numbers obviously has never had to deal with pain that made it impossible to go about your life.

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Then why use the pain scale at all? If numbers don't mean anything, why use them.

I'm not saying that people can't be in HORRIFIC pain. I've been a patient and a nurse long enough to know that stuff hurts. Hell, I've been a HUMAN long enough to know that stuff hurts.

But, if pain can't be quantified, if the chart means NOTHING, then why use it?

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