What nurse life-hacks do you have to offer?

[Purple_roses]

One day I forgot to apply deodorant, and I realized this a few hours into a twelve hour shift. This is how I discovered that hand sanitizer will serve as a decent deodorant in such cases of stinky emergency.

I also discovered that using essential oil underneath the nose helps when you have to deal with something that smells really bad. Usually the go-to is Vicks, but some people are allergic to this. Maybe essential oil will help you?

What hacks have you discovered?

[Tex.]

One day I forgot to apply deodorant, and I realized this a few hours into a twelve hour shift. This is how I discovered that hand sanitizer will serve as a decent deodorant in such cases of stinky emergency.

I also discovered that using essential oil underneath the nose helps when you have to deal with something that smells really bad. Usually the go-to is Vicks, but some people are allergic to this. Maybe essential oil will help you?

What hacks have you discovered?

The deodorant thing happened to me just yesterday!!! I never thought about hand sanitizer....GENIIUS!

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

A peri bottle is a gift. A GIFT. Multi-use....like a shower in a bottle....and aggressively squeezing not only does wonders, but reduces stress.

Hoard them. And chux......same deal

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

Confused patients who refuse mouth care sometimes will cooperate if you dampen the swab with ginger ale.

An elderly confused person who refuses oxygen by nasal cannula or mask but needs a little supplemental oxygen and humidity may tolerate blow by. Use a coolmist humidity bottle with blue corrugated tubing and oxygen at 10 lpm. Tape the corrugated tubing to the bedrail directing the mist in the patients direction. Let your RT and MD know if you change the oxygen delivery system.

This may sound very strange but it works for those confused elderly male patients with urinary problems. Place a newborn diaper around the member. They will hold it there and go right to sleep.

LOVE this.....also a diaper that you pull apart on one end, fill with crushed ice, fold over and use the tabs to close it can be put on peri area for pain. Also throw TUCKS in the fridge and you can add those on top.

For peds, oxygen tubing taped (put a sticker over it too to be special) straight up to the neck of johnnys (that are usually V-neck for kids) and O2 turned up is awesome blow by...

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

I like to use a coldpack wrapped in a paper cover in this position to help those patients who are nauseous in PACU.

Sometimes a mint or cough drop can provide enough of a smell to help distract the brain from vomiting, so I let some patients smell it under their nostrils.

Anyone have any lifehacks for keeping down PO meds on nauseous patients, besides them taking them with some crackers and a little juice or ginger ale?[/QUOTE]

This is wayyyyyy old school, but Maalox first, then the PO meds. My old time MD who was literally 80 when I was 10, THIS was the magic potion...well that and MOM but story for another thread HAHAHA

[hawaiicarl, BSN, RN]

For the smell, grab two yellow masks, and a pt tube of toothpaste, put the first mask on put toothpaste on the inside of the second mask, put the second mask on. This stops you from getting toothpaste in your moustache!

Lumberjack nursing hax!

Cheers

[hawaiicarl, BSN, RN]

Ngt coiling in the mouth? Use 18Fr NGT more rigid less coiling. Still coiling? Get a cup of ice water, attach the syringe, suck ice water in and out of the ngt, then while it is stiff, curve the last 2" portion down, insert relatively rapidly, because if you go slow the heat from the pt will make it pliable again.

Safety note - do not use on basilar skull fractures/facial traumas, CSF out of your NGT=bad.

Cheers

[hawaiicarl, BSN, RN]

Have an antique surgeon tell you to hook a bulb suction to LIWS? Take a 3 ml syringe, pull out the stopper, cut the barrel in half, screw the luer lock of the syringe onto the bulb drain, insert the 5in1 adapter into the barrel of the syringe, then into the suction tubing. Presto! Bulb to LIWS! You've just Mcgyvered that old MD.

Cheers

[brownbook]

Toothpaste removes odors from your hands....and probably could be used in other areas as well?....I've only used it on my hands.

Rubbing alcohol removes tangles from hair.

[weirdscience]

This is verboten in my facility, so use at your peril: for a heating pack that lasts, stick two peri-pads together and pour hot (NOT boiling water) over them. Once they stop dripping, stick them in a waterproof ice bag. You MUST test water on yourself to check temp, and I would never give to any patient with fragile skin (baby, elderly) or anyone confused--don't scald your patient! For young patients with cramping from reproductive system cancers, these were the best.

[kat29]

Have a really confused patient who insists on throwing off the sheets and displaying themselves to the world?

Take a hospital gown, with snaps- turn it upside down and snap the armholes around the thighs. Makes a great pair of shorts for the 'less than modest' patient. We used this a lot for our very squirmy TBIs. Also, run the foley tubing down the leg out the shorts and they won't be so likely to pull it out.

[FlyingScot, RN]

A strip of iodoform packing gauze tied to the head of the bed will DESTROY any stench from any source.

Have a patient with dementia who's a "picker"? Give them a stack of loose washcloths and tell them they're for the babies in the nursery and you could really use some help folding them. When they get them all folded pick up the pile, leave the room, mess them up and have them do it again. Works best with the LOLs but some of the grandpas out there are real softies.

[Purple_roses]

Thanks for sharing these everyone! Keep 'em coming if you think of more! By the end of this we could make an AN encyclopedia of hacks.