Ask a nurse anything.

Are you a nurse or a murse?

reply to post by Binder


What's amazing to me about "pain" and medicine is that its well known that Marijuana has historically been used for pain and yet is "prohibited".

Meanwhile OPIUM based medications are the most popular of all the legally prescribed medications with some of the most severe life-ending and addiction causing property.

It certainly gives me the sense of hmmmmm there's corruption in them there laws. Corruption to the extent that it appears the prohibition of MJ is designed to increase the Opium sales while also reving up the war machinery on mexico and afghanistan... and notorious who the main drug-runners are (secret military organizations).

But hay I wouldn't advocate anything illegal - just take the Dr's drugs and die like you're supposed to!

Originally posted by reitze
reply to post by Binder

 

What's amazing to me about "pain" and medicine is that its well known that Marijuana has historically been used for pain and yet is "prohibited".

Meanwhile OPIUM based medications are the most popular of all the legally prescribed medications with some of the most severe life-ending and addiction causing property.

It certainly gives me the sense of hmmmmm there's corruption in them there laws. Corruption to the extent that it appears the prohibition of MJ is designed to increase the Opium sales while also reving up the war machinery on mexico and afghanistan... and notorious who the main drug-runners are (secret military organizations).

But hay I wouldn't advocate anything illegal - just take the Dr's drugs and die like you're supposed to!

Actually most Opium/ Heroine users now all want dilaudid. They love the stuff!!!

In your opinion, do annual dental x rays pose a significant health threat due to radiological exposure? Standard exposure level is 65 kV. (For reference in another thread)

reply to post by GuidedKill


LOL, No I am not a handbag, I am however a Registered Nurse that happens to be of the male heterosexual persuasion.

reply to post by ~Vixen~


Most of the main stay literature says it is harmless. The more fringe research says maybe not. A few on the fringe of the fringe seem to think it is going to out right kill you the next time a tech hits the shutter.

In my opinion: even though they use the lowest power they can to get a good image, and it is relatively safe for occasional exposure, I also think yearly is too much if there are no significant changes in your dental health. A lot of things done in the medical field are to bilk insurance. I can't critsize too much because insurance does put the squeeze on pay outs, and the dentitst is usually just trying to generate a little more revenue in the name of being extra careful, thorough, etc... I only have x-rays about every 5 years, which should catch any insideous change, but I think more than that is unnecessary unless you are injured, or are having a lot of dental work done.

Originally posted by GuidedKill

Originally posted by reitze
reply to post by Binder

 

What's amazing to me about "pain" and medicine is that its well known that Marijuana has historically been used for pain and yet is "prohibited".

Meanwhile OPIUM based medications are the most popular of all the legally prescribed medications with some of the most severe life-ending and addiction causing property.

It certainly gives me the sense of hmmmmm there's corruption in them there laws. Corruption to the extent that it appears the prohibition of MJ is designed to increase the Opium sales while also reving up the war machinery on mexico and afghanistan... and notorious who the main drug-runners are (secret military organizations).

But hay I wouldn't advocate anything illegal - just take the Dr's drugs and die like you're supposed to!

Actually most Opium/ Heroine users now all want dilaudid. They love the stuff!!!

And no-wonder, Dilaudid is an OPIATE! (wiki answers)

What is the news on Gulf War Syndrome?The nerve agent pills(PCBs) squalene in the anthrax vaccine and Depleted Uranium.
Will someone grow a brain cell and kindly inform the medical community as a whole to stop giving combat trained individuals SSRI medications?
Not for anyone really.

Originally posted by Binder
reply to post by ~Vixen~

 

Most of the main stay literature says it is harmless. The more fringe research says maybe not. A few on the fringe of the fringe seem to think it is going to out right kill you the next time a tech hits the shutter.

In my opinion: even though they use the lowest power they can to get a good image, and it is relatively safe for occasional exposure, I also think yearly is too much if there are no significant changes in your dental health. A lot of things done in the medical field are to bilk insurance. I can't critsize too much because insurance does put the squeeze on pay outs, and the dentitst is usually just trying to generate a little more revenue in the name of being extra careful, thorough, etc... I only have x-rays about every 5 years, which should catch any insideous change, but I think more than that is unnecessary unless you are injured, or are having a lot of dental work done.

Well said. Let me add that all it takes is for 1 photon/muon/nutrino/particle to hit 1 DNA molecule in the wrong way to cause a problem. Exposure to X-rays happens all the time, like walking past your microwave oven when its on, or flying in an airplane. Pilots do it all the time and i don't know if they have higher cancer rates - prolly not... the OSHA standards of old were statistically based... but recently the raw information seems obscured by more and more bull ####. Thus minimizing exposures seems wise. And yea, as an engineer who's worked in radar I find the scanners at airports to be a very disturbing trend. I've had thought-moments of not going through the machine followed by the thought of leveling some asshole for feeling my junk... of course dreaming througth that crappy stuff helps me deal with such reality of making the choices and getting through the associated abuse. But still it's annoying what's happened to this nation that my grandfathers fought for in WWII only to see the Nazis running it now. Ok I've ranted-off now.

What? Is it something I said?

Originally posted by Binder
reply to post by ~Vixen~

 

Most of the main stay literature says it is harmless. The more fringe research says maybe not. A few on the fringe of the fringe seem to think it is going to out right kill you the next time a tech hits the shutter.

In my opinion: even though they use the lowest power they can to get a good image, and it is relatively safe for occasional exposure, I also think yearly is too much if there are no significant changes in your dental health. A lot of things done in the medical field are to bilk insurance. I can't critsize too much because insurance does put the squeeze on pay outs, and the dentitst is usually just trying to generate a little more revenue in the name of being extra careful, thorough, etc... I only have x-rays about every 5 years, which should catch any insideous change, but I think more than that is unnecessary unless you are injured, or are having a lot of dental work done.

Thank you for the frank opinion. There's another thread where the topic of concern was dental x-ray radiation exposure levels. Lots of confusion, and contrasting views. Being a MD it was claimed that I'm blind to the truth and that dosages are extremely harmful. I was just hoping to get more feedback.

~V~

reply to post by reitze


Dilaudid, or hydromorphone, is approximately 8x to 10x the strength of morphine. We started using hydromorphone in place of morphine in the ED. Additionally, fentanyl is another excellent and powerful opiate, less hemodynamic side effects.

reply to post by Cosmic911


Fentanyl does work good the vast majority of the time, but in rare cases it can cause sudden respiratory failure at dosages considered "normal" for the recipient. Any time I am giving it I watch my patient like a hawk. I have only had it happen to me 1 time, but once is plenty enough.

Originally posted by Binder
reply to post by Cosmic911

 

Fentanyl does work good the vast majority of the time, but in rare cases it can cause sudden respiratory failure at dosages considered "normal" for the recipient. Any time I am giving it I watch my patient like a hawk. I have only had it happen to me 1 time, but once is plenty enough.

On medevac missions we use Fentanyl exclusively; usually in total doses of 300 mcg over a period of 20 to 30 minutes. Haven't had a single episode of chest wall rigidity or failure ever.

Originally posted by Cosmic911
reply to post by reitze

 

Dilaudid, or hydromorphone, is approximately 8x to 10x the strength of morphine. We started using hydromorphone in place of morphine in the ED. Additionally, fentanyl is another excellent and powerful opiate, less hemodynamic side effects.

Amazing. No wonder we're fighting wars in Afghanistan and Mexico... nobody ever OD'd on MJ and now Opium is ultra opium - 10x morphine? No wonder the drug addicts want that stuff.

I think it should all be legal - there'd be no wars over the stuff - and rather than getting handed deadly stuff like that from a "Dr", people might make their own informed decisions - or just die anyway. Seems pharmacopeia like that is doing the job anyway.

reply to post by Cosmic911


I've used it a bazillion times too. My patient that locked up was naive to it because he only got 50 mcg for some breakthrough pain, and crashed like a lead balloon 15 minutes later. I know it was 1 in a million, but I ALWAYS get that one it seems

What is your take on defensive medicine? Do you ever chat with patients regarding overly invasive procedures or treatments and possible alternatives?

73% of doctors admit to ordering unnecessary tests

Defensive medicine, a phenomenon born with the rise in malpractice lawsuits, includes ordering unnecessary tests and sometimes even unnecessary treatments. To be fair, it’s not difficult to understand why a reasonable doctor would want to cover all his bases, so to speak, since the threat of a frivolous lawsuit is always looming. Whatever the reason, by the doctors’ own estimate, unnecessary tests and treatments account for more than one-quarter of health-care costs.

Needless Medical Tests Costly

During your next routine medical checkup you have at least a 43 percent chance of undergoing an unnecessary medical test, a new study shows. "There are many things we do in primary care that are unnecessary — unnecessary because there is no proof that by doing these exams we get data that makes a difference to a patient's health care," Schwartz tells WebMD.

$700 billion each year is spent on unnecessary medical tests


Would you rather have a CT scan or an MRI performed on yourself to diagnose a potential problem (not related to head trauma and acute abdominal conditions) given that a possible one in 50 cases of future cancer will have been caused by all these CT scans?

A recent report, published in November in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that the radiation from current CT-scan use — estimated at more than 62 million CT scans per year in the U.S. (up from 3 million in 1980) — may cause of as many as 1 in 50 future cases of cancer. It's a serious charge.

Do you believe that this trend is purely monetarily driven given that an MRI is considered superior in every diagnostic sense and has the added benefit of being relatively harmless and radiation-free?

In August 2005, doctors at Urological Associates, a medical practice on the Iowa-Illinois border, ordered nine CT scans for patients covered by Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance. In September that year, they ordered eight. But then the numbers rose steeply. The urologists ordered 35 scans in October, 41 in November and 55 in December. Within seven months, they were ordering scans at a rate that had climbed more than 700 percent. The increase came in the months after the urologists bought their own CT scanner, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Instead of referring patients to radiologists, the doctors started conducting their own imaging -- and drawing insurance reimbursements for each of those patients.

reply to post by Binder


Hey, you see the shortage on fentanyl right now? All my friends have told me about it. I guess its only largely available in carpujects? Kinda weird. I'm no longer flying medevacs so I'm not as tuned in with these things right now. I'm teaching nursing school. The pace is so different lol. No adrenalin whatsoever. And you can only imagine the blank stares as I'm lecturing about acid-base balance and ABGs yesterday. Hahaha! I have two days of med-surg clinical with them on Mon and Tues so at least I'm back in the hospital, if only for a couple days. Thinking about getting a per diem ED job here on the side. I have to do something to maintain bedside hours for my CCRN. I'm kinda panicking about that!

reply to post by Cosmic911


Clinic instructor, huh? Please try to remember what it was like to be in your student's shoes. I had one clinic instructor from hell who made me want to check myself into a mental hospital, it was my first semester and I had no idea what I was doing and she did her best to rattle me. All the others were fantastic and inspired me and gave me the confidence I needed to push on in school. I bet you will be one to inspire, but my thinking for some of the teachers is that they are so enmeshed into their nursing careers and have done it for so long that they forget what its like to get all this new information and how to put it together

Good luck with the ER job, hope that goes well for you!

reply to post by reitze


Actually, cannabis is something that helps with my pain greatly, but it's not good at managing in severe pain (breakthrough pain) at all. At least in my experience anyways...

But I do agree it could be of benefit in more than one way if it would be legalized.