I'm an ex forces paramedic, so i know how everything works. My IV kept kinking, which would set the pump off. One of the nurses knew me, and told me i could reset it if i wanted to. So i did, and got a bollocking from the next nurse on shift, who insisted i didn't know what i was doing, and then got even more pissed when the machine went off every five minutes lol. This is a very useful tip!
Not a medical professional, but I am a professional patient, and I have always wondered how to “fix” a full drip chamber. This is such an easy, quick solution to a problem.
Next time you go itemize everything you did by yourself and charge them 30x what they would charge you for doing it🤣 if they charge 250 for blood pressure and temp and all that. Just come with all that prepared and charge them $7,500 and then let there lawyer talk you down to like $20. That's basically how it works in a nutshell. Added bonus you get to claim what they don't pay you as a tax deduction.
I am a professional patient too. They have no idea what's wrong with me. It's not easy to be a patient over and over again so my heart goes out to you and I hope you are doing okay.
@@xbrandi12345x sound like me, but 10 years ago. My Disability Lawyer finally figured it out. I have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and a lot of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome’s secondary illnesses. If you haven’t heard of EDS, it’s a common diagnosis for the “we don’t know what’s wrong with this patient” mysteries. EDS is a genetic connective tissue disorder, and the body has a ton of connective tissues. Since connective tissues are everywhere, issues like Autonomic Dysfunction, most commonly a condition called POTS, Gastroparesis, chronic pain, full or partial joint dislocations, and many other issues occur. I was diagnosed with EDS in 2016, and looking back so many of my health issues and symptoms, from my youth, were EDS. The doctors and adults in my life kept telling me it was anxiety, depression, or I was a hypochondriac. Depression and anxiety I have, and I own that I suffer from them, but it got so bad because no one believed me. If you want more information on EDS, and/or want to hear more of how I got the answers to my mysterious medical problems, let me know. I like helping people figure out their own medical mysteries.
This is definitely not an abnormal situation or even a situation that needs fixed half the time. Just happens when you overfill the chamber or when you have a secondary like (for antibiotics for example) and drop it too low compared to the primary bag. Many cases for why it can happen, just limits you being able to see if the fluid is dripping or not. In some cases you want the chamber entirely filled because it prevents air from getting into your vein once the bolus is done (when there’s no pump to detect air in the line)
These practical educational tips on how to use medical equipment and stuff are so awesome for us in the medical field. I really appreciate these ones ❤️. Even when they are information that I already know, they are such useful refreshers.
I was amazed when I took my mom for a colonoscopy the other day when I said, mom that's called a canula when she said "what's in my nose?" The nurse looked at me like I was so incredible because I know a basic medical term. We need more regular education of medical things for EVERYONE. We will all need health care at some point and we all need to know the basics!
As a nurse, the air in the drip chamber almost always doesn’t matter unless you’re infusing large volumes extremely fast with no pump. It helps you see if fluid is running, that’s it. For everyone worried about air bubbles, it takes a significant amount of air to cause an air embolism. Obviously if it can be prevented, we like to avoid having air at all, but some fluids are extremely hard to prevent air from getting into it because of the thickness of fluid. DEFINITELY don’t do this on your own if you don’t have any training and if you see a large amount of air going down the line AFTER the pump, let your nurse know. Hope that answers everyone’s questions!
Despite what they show on TV and what most people think it would be almost impossible to inject enough air fast enough through an IV line to harm them.
@@PrimateProductionsI believe the only cases where a serious air embolism can cause problems is during jugular central line removal if the venous blood pressure is lower than atmospheric
So air in a pic line being pushed couldn't cause a heart attack I had one after my daughter helped me with one of those bags that are like balls that don't have to hang I always thought we screwed up and that's what caused it???????
@@carolina.910someone local did one of those home IVs for hangovers and the nurse left the bag on the table instead of hanging it and air got into the lines causing her to go into cardiac arrest.
I’m always absolutely terrified of air bubbles in my IV whenever I have had to have one. One time I begged a nurse to fix it because I was scared of the air going into my veins and she just rolled her eyes at me but didn’t explain why it wasn’t a big deal
I'm sorry that you worries were treated like that. A good nurse would have taken the time with you to explain why it's not something you need to worry about. I can explain it to you now, if you like. I'm not sure if you've found out more about it since then, and don't need me to explain it to you. I'm happy to help you out though, if it's still something you worry about :)
I did that aswell, until they told me little air bubbles were no big deal, the problem would be if the bubbles were big. And many tiny bubbles went from the IV directly into my blood (with me thinking I was done for right then and there 😅), but nothing happened, so i wouldn't be concerned as long as its just a little tiny solitaire bubble. If there are too many bubbles, I'd be concerned.
I searched the web and found that we can tolerate up to 1ml of air per kg in our blood stream with no complications, so it takes a HUGE amount of air to cause you problems. Like, if you have 50 kg, it would take you a thick syringe full of air to cause you any problem.
I have to do my iv fluids with vitamins twice a week via my port and I squeeze the crap out of the bag to get all the bubbles out and that works well for me. Interesting tip. Didn't know that.
I also do fluids via my port! You can use a syringe with n33dle to suck the air out or what I do is spike the bag like normal then with then squeeze the air out through the tubing I use a curlin so I squeeze the yellow thingy. Different pump tubing is different. I also sometimes use gravity I didn't know why there was this video I thought everyone knew this.😂
So what you two do is “burping” an IV bag based on the explanation. It’s essential to prevent air from getting into the line since I’m pretty sure they don’t give you pumps. You want the drip chamber and bag completely devoid of air because that air can end up in your port or you. Always make sure you do what your provider instructs you to do unless you absolutely know what you’re doing!
You can also invert the bag and squeeze the fluid from the drip chamber without pinching the line. I never get air in the line. It works too. This is a good method, thanks
Thank you! As someone whose never worked in a hospital and doesn't do anything medical for a living or hobby I'm so glad that youtube recommended this to me 🙏
You joke about it, but something veryyy similar actually happened to me. So, I needed a procedure to be done while I was in hospital. I had something called a PICC line, and it had to be removed because it was infected. A PICC line is lint an IV, however it lasts a lot longer and the tube part that goes into your vein, actually goes all the way to your heart. So, an infection in a tube that goes go your heart is a very bad thing, because the bacteria get into your bloodstream immediately and sent round your whole body. So you get a blood infection instantly which can then into sepsis which is even worse. Anyway, because the tube needed to come out ASAP, and the main doctor was busy, she sent a junior doctor plus a nurse to take out my PICC line. The junior doctor was very young (he was barely older than me, his first hospital placement during his medical degree training) and I could instantly tell be was extremely nervous. He didn't even know where to start, so I knew he didn't know what he was doing. To make a joke, I said something like "oh you should see if there's a RUclips guide on how to do this, there's a uotiubr) youtube guide for everything!". Once again, I said this AS A JOKE!!! But he said "oh yeah that's a great idea" and he got his phone out and looked up a guide... And there was one!!!! He got the nurse to hold the phone with the video (he watched the vid a couple of times first), as he held the scalpel. (*** side note, skip to the end if you're a doctor or nurse and want to know more about the scalpel part). He successfully took my PICC line out in the end and he non sarcastically thanked me for thinking of a youtube tutorial... It was a WILD experience overall! (***if anyone medical like a doctor reads this, the scalpel was needed because the SecureAcath device they used to anchor the picc into my skin had become half totally buried and the other half had eroded through my skin already so the removal video was actually kinda useless bc he just had to cut it out regardless. The video was showing how to remove the SecureAcath normally)
@unknownentity7964 it's common for even skilled surgeons to look up youtube tutorials before surgery. It helps them make sure they remember all the steps and the process will be fresh in their brain. This should never be done in front of a patient especially if the doctor seems new.
I don't know if you meant this sarcastically. If you were being sarcastic then I'm sorry for missing it. But if not - please don't try to fix this yourself if you end up in hospital. Please alert the nurse, and let them sort it out
WHY didn't I know this information before ? IVs are my panic item in a hospital setting. Seeing air bubbles in the line can cause my anxiety go sky high. Just how much air in the line is too much ?
@@marianne9433 the exact amount is unknown and would depend on lots of factors, like patient history, comorbidities, body weight, location of IV, etc. However, when I did a project on this topic for nursing school, I found that generally it’s understood that it would take at least 200-300 mls of air injected at one time into a vein to be potentially fatal for an adult.
I saw a hilarious video where someone replaced the Alaris pump infusion finished alarm noise with the lil music that washing machines play when they've finished washing and it cracked me up haha
as someone who was under not the best care for a full month, the feeling of that little thing being squeezed can be felt every time you do it even through video (ofc talking about when you do it w/o clamping the line shut
Honestly, your natural instinct as a nurse/medical practitioner will teach you how to do this lmao like literally no one taught me that this is what should be done.
I mean, it's not that big of a deal. You don't *have * to get the excess out. That is, unless you're running the whole bag via gravity and you need to visualise the drip rate in order to calculate the flow rate. But that's a pretty niche case, and I don't know many hospitals that still just use gravity to run their fluids (especially not any specific infusions). Pumps all the way
I just left the hospital with my husband and they gave him 2 of these bags.. I was a nurse but never knew this could happen and now that I know I could prevent this if my husband runs into these issues 🥺 Bless you
@lucianograff6512 yeah...I find it really, really difficult to believe that she was/is a nurse and also that she was not aware that this could happen. I'm pretty certain that any nurse that has ever worked with IVs for more than a few weeks would HAVE to have experienced this.😏
@@PrimateProductions I'm kinda uncertain that they were ever an actual nurse too... And she writes about now being able to look out for these 'issues' in the future, as if the reservoir being too full is some kind of medical emergency that needs to be fixed immediately. Someone non medical who watched the video might get the idea that having a full drip chamber is dangerous or something, as he doesn't explain that it's a trivial thing to have it full. So people might think it's some urgent thing that just be fixed, if a doctor is making a video on how to fix it. That's why I don't believe that this person was a nurse at any point. The way she talks and the words she uses aren't words a nurse would use. The conclusion that she drew from watching the video is one that someone without medical knowledge would make... I hope that made sense, I struggle with finding the right words to explain my thoughts. Also she referred to it as her husband having 'two of those bags'. A non medical person might think that the bag of fluids in the video is the only thing that'll look like that. Hence why she said 'one of those bags' because a non med person wouldn't know that just because someone had a bag that looks similar to the one in the vid, doesn't mean it's the same thing/contents. Whereas an actual nurse (or someone like me who has extensive medical experience due to being in hospitals wayyy too much unfortunately) would say something more like "my husband had 2 bags of fluids /LR/hartmans". Or specify something more specific if it was some other type of infusion like potassium or whatever. I hope my reasoning make some kind of sense to anyone reading this. And if not, blame my shitty body which let me get brain damage from being in status epilepticus one too many times. Just *not* what the doctor ordered lol (sorry if that joke doesn't work, if you're from a place that doesn't have that colloquialism then it will sound like I just said a random sentence lol)!
unless you need to see the drip rate to manually calculate flow it doesn't matter if the drip chamber is full. when we use bags for art lines the drip chamber gets filled to the top. doesn't affect anything.
I’m scratching my head here trying to figure out why would an IV chamber fill up with fluid .. should not everything be flowing properly?? so next time basically when I go into the hospital for another operation,if my IV chamber is full, I will set up and grab the IV bag pull it off of the Charlie that holds it up and pinch off and turn it upside down. Tell the nurse go back to your coffee no problem I got this.?? 😂
A full drip chamber doesn’t matter most of the time. Definitely wouldn’t recommend messing with it unless you know what you’re doing, you don’t want to inject air into yourself accidentally
I've never had pumps when having IV's (unless one was used only during my surgery) other than that just gravity. When a bag runs out, I just clamp the line and call for the nurses. If there's issues with the IV fluids have issues with flow or something, I call for nurses to just check my IV because my veins have a tendency to expire relatively fast so IV's need to be replaced. The joys of EDS I guess... The place that tends to last the best for me is having the IV at the base of my left thumb.
Actual question I'd like an answer to; if I do introduce air to the line, what should I do? Call the nurse frantically and track the bubble as it goes through the line? If it gets close enough to the needle, should I unscrew the line connected to the needle and take the tube out? Or would that be alright?
He blocked off the tubing so no air is getting past the bottom of the drip chamber while he's doing that manoeuvre. It's not going to introduce any air into the tubing
For my job I’m no where near a tube set that’s used for patients but I do similar manipulations to get bubbles out of the line for further compounding so I don’t introduce bubbles into my final source container
I became a lot less nervous of bubbles my iv line the first time I had to have a bubble echo. Holy crap that was scary as he🏒🏒. I said you’re gonna do what??
From 1 to 10. How painful would you say it is to get an IV in the foot without anesthesia? I would just like a doctors opinion, cus i tried it, and it hurts
A better way is to keep the spike upright turn the fluid bag upside down and put it below the level of the spike. This way doesn't risk air entering the tubing.
@@tetra3ne56scur3that's.... Unusual. Still, I'd rather have a medical kink that the medical PTSD that a life of growing up in hospital more than I'm out of it have given me. Wanna trade lol if you live my life you get to have endlesss medical devices. A bajillion IV infusions and medications each day, ventilator +tubing, stomach draining tubes, intestinal tube, bladder tube, central line tube that goes in your chest into your heart, tracheostomy tubes. All the medical shit you could ever want lol and in return I get your body lol
If it’s hooked up to a pump (which they almost always are) then it doesn’t matter. It’s only there to set drip rate which the pump does. Also, you don’t have to pinch the line, the bag is a vacuum so it doesn’t have any air in it. This is an OR so they don’t use pumps. I highly recommend you leave the nurses to do their jobs and if it’s full and on a pump, leave it alone.
Ideally, for the nurse. Patients shouldn't be messing with their own IVs (unless they're trained to do so, such as if they usually have IVs at home like me). But even then, it's still best to leave it for the nurse to sort out
Nurses will let the alarm go for an hour before attending IV bags. It's impossible to get a good night's rest with those people so you got to DIY family member! This will be handy for those who use hospitals. They are THE most dangerous place to be.
Problem is with modern machines meant to catch the tiniest of bubbles, the IV will shut off completely and ding constantly anyway. I get regular infusions, so I always check my entire line for kinks, make sure the clips are released and that the bag is dripping steadily before the nurse/attending leaves the room for the first time. I’ve also learned to keep an eye on the flow rate, because there have been several times they have gotten that wrong, or started the fluids but not the meds.
You're absolutely right about the sleep part. I have lived failure which caused my kidneys to fail. When they were failing I was recovering from a coma, and I didn't get real sleep really for nearly 6 days after I was out of the ICU. The only reason why I know I got some sleep was my roommate. Told me my coma did me in. I asked why he says that. He said I stop talking mid sentence then pick up right where I left after 3 minutes. I was micro sleeping! Anyway the noise is annoying. Regular IVs of fluid is fine if the nurse does the catheter right. Albumin and something called an IDPN (Calories) Is super annoying. Goes off constantly. I had other medicines do it too, but can't recall the name. Right now for me though it is my low blood pressure. It always triggers the machines! At dialysis it is so annoying getting snapped awake by my machine every 30 minutes. Can't nap for the four hours due to it, and feel bad for the techs who have to come over to mute it.
Most likely, the pump is not beeping because the drip chamber is full, like in this video. For starters, drip chambers like that are generally only used when the bag is being run via gravity, not a pump. So the drip chamber is used so you can verify that the fluid is running through and you can calculate the flow rate via the timing of the drips. Even if they do use tubing with a drip chamber with a pump, chances are that the pump is beeping for other reasons, such as occlusion in the IV from bending the arm/hand of IV site. Or, micro bubbles are being sensed by the pump (such a nuisance). Or the pump is sensing too much resistance to the flow, if the IV placed in a bad spot or is starting to tissue. Due to how much I've been in hospital, I know how to use their pumps and know how to deal with most causes of beeping. So I deal with it without needing to call a nurse. Obviously, some causes I can't deal with. Such as if it's beeping because it's finished the infusion. I have many IV infusions, IV treatments and IV meds at home so I'm veryyy used to all sorts of pumps. So when I'm in hospital, the nurses often give me sort of permission to deal with it when I can
@@dianapennepacker6854I wish hospitals gave more of a focus on making sure patients have a good night's rest!! That's a crucial part of healing and they seem to do the opposite!! I understand how you feel, when it seems like you're being pumped through with every medication under the sun! Every day, I have 3-4 continuous IV infusions running, plus TPN (IV nutrition plus IV lipids =fat), IV fluids, manyyy IV meds through the day, plus various intermittent infusions that I need throughout the day too. Even when I'm home from the hospital, I still don't get a break from the medicines, the pumps beeping, the monitors beeping! If it isn't one of my many IV pumps beeping, then it'll be my ventilator beeping, or my oxygen and heart rate monitor beeping, or my oxygen concentrator beeping, or my wheelchair beeping because the battery is dying or my bed beeping because the motor thingy that keeps air flowing round it is disconnected... Soo so many beeps....
If the IV is in the bed of your arm, keep your arm straight. The IV isn’t a needle once placed, it’s a plastic tube that’s pushed into your vein OFF of the needle. That tube gets kinked and causes the beeping usually.
Not a professional medic but a professional patient, after a long time in the hospital me and mom just did this after learning from the nurses lmao And a whole lotta other stuff too
I was getting an IV once, but the bag was taking a really long time to be empty, so they set it for the IV to stop pumping liquids into me after about 2 hours so they wouldn't have to check on me ever 40 minutes to see if the bag was empty. Once it was empty it kept going and was supposed to for another hour and I slowly watched the tube fill with air bubbles. I didn't know what to do, but luckily the machine detected them before they went into my body. I was just wondering if this was standard practice??
I worked in vetmed before working with humans, and lemme tell you this does NOT work when giving SQ fluids (unfortunately the chamber fills up a lot of the time because we would squeeze the bag to make it go faster, no pump for SQ fluids). It gets some bubbles in the line and then it crackles under the pet’s skin. Air in the line isn’t that big of a deal but when you give the pet back to the owner….they can hear and feel crackles and people freak tf out.
But surely if you are kinking the tubing just below the drip chamber in order to close it off completely, then no air would get further down the tubing while you're doing this manouver? Unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning. I have a couple of subq treatments/medications myself, but one is via syringe driver and one is via a straight push. Is there a specific reason why you don't use a driver /pump for subq fluids on animals? Or just bc gravity works well enough and is self limiting if one infusion site gets overloaded?
@@unknownentity7964 because we don’t send thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment (pumps) home with clients just to give like 100 mL SQ. Plus keeping the pet still and not moving is hard, and it’s not like there’s a catheter or something to hold the needle in, the owner has to physically hold the needle in. You just can’t use a pump SQ, it doesn’t work like that. And we don’t clamp the line just below the chamber? You clamp it on the other end by the needle. The crackling under the skin isn’t dangerous it’s just annoying. Giving things SQ is way different in animals than humans, they have a lot more loose skin and space under there to give stuff. Cats in particular do very very well with SQ fluids-when we do IV we have to put in a catheter and keep them in a cage with a cone on and constant supervision to hook them up to a pump. No cat wants to sit in the hospital for a whole day when we could do it SQ at home with the owner way faster. Sure, IV might be better for certain conditions, but it’s borderline cruel to do it all the time because they get so stressed.
It takes quite a lot of air … ask someone ; a bubble = ok ok ok . Not like in the movies. I was a bit scared and all the staff told me the same thing. When I have to give a shot to my dog … it is the same I mean in a blood vessel. A tiny bubble = ok A full 💉 no no
Some of us ME doesn't know what you're talking about. I've been putting off surgery for a long time. Now I'm laying here crying bc I'm in sooo much pain.
I would say thats a good sterile technique … I sometimes use it But I found my self using the “ unplug replug “ technique Where you unplug the line from the bag wait a few seconds to draw some air, then replug it in what you say about it !!? I I wouldn’t recommend it though as it more prone for infection and some IV bags have bad seals and starts to leaks when you unplug them
I got stuck in a nursing competency because of this… it was for a blood transfusion. In the competence I got stuck and I had to lose that first attempt because I just couldn’t think. Duh, blood is only compatible with normal saline…. So yeah I guess I wasn’t thinking of turning the bag red. So yeah…
i just did it throughout years as a nurse and i always think im crazy to always did this. turns out it is a common practice lmao (i swear i never saw my colleague did this)
I'm an ex forces paramedic, so i know how everything works. My IV kept kinking, which would set the pump off. One of the nurses knew me, and told me i could reset it if i wanted to. So i did, and got a bollocking from the next nurse on shift, who insisted i didn't know what i was doing, and then got even more pissed when the machine went off every five minutes lol. This is a very useful tip!
She got mad at you for fixing it but even more mad about having to fix it? She sounds miserable
@@implecity fr
@@implecity frrrrrrr
Some nurses think they know everything.
did you tell her youre a paramedic
Not a medical professional, but I am a professional patient, and I have always wondered how to “fix” a full drip chamber. This is such an easy, quick solution to a problem.
Next time you go itemize everything you did by yourself and charge them 30x what they would charge you for doing it🤣 if they charge 250 for blood pressure and temp and all that. Just come with all that prepared and charge them $7,500 and then let there lawyer talk you down to like $20. That's basically how it works in a nutshell. Added bonus you get to claim what they don't pay you as a tax deduction.
I am a professional patient too. They have no idea what's wrong with me. It's not easy to be a patient over and over again so my heart goes out to you and I hope you are doing okay.
@@xbrandi12345x sound like me, but 10 years ago. My Disability Lawyer finally figured it out. I have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and a lot of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome’s secondary illnesses. If you haven’t heard of EDS, it’s a common diagnosis for the “we don’t know what’s wrong with this patient” mysteries. EDS is a genetic connective tissue disorder, and the body has a ton of connective tissues. Since connective tissues are everywhere, issues like Autonomic Dysfunction, most commonly a condition called POTS, Gastroparesis, chronic pain, full or partial joint dislocations, and many other issues occur. I was diagnosed with EDS in 2016, and looking back so many of my health issues and symptoms, from my youth, were EDS. The doctors and adults in my life kept telling me it was anxiety, depression, or I was a hypochondriac. Depression and anxiety I have, and I own that I suffer from them, but it got so bad because no one believed me. If you want more information on EDS, and/or want to hear more of how I got the answers to my mysterious medical problems, let me know. I like helping people figure out their own medical mysteries.
@@xbrandi12345xsame
@@xbrandi12345x Professional patients assemble 🦅🦅 (But yeah I get you. It's so exhausting.)
Can I charge the hospital $10K for detecting an abnormal situation, diagnosing the problem, and applying the fix?
😂 Awesome comment
🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🤣
10% coupon 🦅
Definitely but I think it'd be more like 20,000 cause they always "accidentally" overcharge
This is definitely not an abnormal situation or even a situation that needs fixed half the time. Just happens when you overfill the chamber or when you have a secondary like (for antibiotics for example) and drop it too low compared to the primary bag. Many cases for why it can happen, just limits you being able to see if the fluid is dripping or not. In some cases you want the chamber entirely filled because it prevents air from getting into your vein once the bolus is done (when there’s no pump to detect air in the line)
These practical educational tips on how to use medical equipment and stuff are so awesome for us in the medical field. I really appreciate these ones ❤️. Even when they are information that I already know, they are such useful refreshers.
I was amazed when I took my mom for a colonoscopy the other day when I said, mom that's called a canula when she said "what's in my nose?" The nurse looked at me like I was so incredible because I know a basic medical term. We need more regular education of medical things for EVERYONE. We will all need health care at some point and we all need to know the basics!
As a nurse, the air in the drip chamber almost always doesn’t matter unless you’re infusing large volumes extremely fast with no pump. It helps you see if fluid is running, that’s it. For everyone worried about air bubbles, it takes a significant amount of air to cause an air embolism. Obviously if it can be prevented, we like to avoid having air at all, but some fluids are extremely hard to prevent air from getting into it because of the thickness of fluid. DEFINITELY don’t do this on your own if you don’t have any training and if you see a large amount of air going down the line AFTER the pump, let your nurse know. Hope that answers everyone’s questions!
Despite what they show on TV and what most people think it would be almost impossible to inject enough air fast enough through an IV line to harm them.
@@PrimateProductionsI believe the only cases where a serious air embolism can cause problems is during jugular central line removal if the venous blood pressure is lower than atmospheric
@@michu6777 exactly!!
So air in a pic line being pushed couldn't cause a heart attack I had one after my daughter helped me with one of those bags that are like balls that don't have to hang I always thought we screwed up and that's what caused it???????
@@carolina.910someone local did one of those home IVs for hangovers and the nurse left the bag on the table instead of hanging it and air got into the lines causing her to go into cardiac arrest.
I’m always absolutely terrified of air bubbles in my IV whenever I have had to have one. One time I begged a nurse to fix it because I was scared of the air going into my veins and she just rolled her eyes at me but didn’t explain why it wasn’t a big deal
I'm sorry that you worries were treated like that. A good nurse would have taken the time with you to explain why it's not something you need to worry about. I can explain it to you now, if you like. I'm not sure if you've found out more about it since then, and don't need me to explain it to you. I'm happy to help you out though, if it's still something you worry about :)
@@unknownentity7964 if you could! I still worry about that a lot
I did that aswell, until they told me little air bubbles were no big deal, the problem would be if the bubbles were big. And many tiny bubbles went from the IV directly into my blood (with me thinking I was done for right then and there 😅), but nothing happened, so i wouldn't be concerned as long as its just a little tiny solitaire bubble. If there are too many bubbles, I'd be concerned.
I searched the web and found that we can tolerate up to 1ml of air per kg in our blood stream with no complications, so it takes a HUGE amount of air to cause you problems. Like, if you have 50 kg, it would take you a thick syringe full of air to cause you any problem.
these nurses are really assuming everyones been to med school
I have to do my iv fluids with vitamins twice a week via my port and I squeeze the crap out of the bag to get all the bubbles out and that works well for me. Interesting tip. Didn't know that.
I also do fluids via my port! You can use a syringe with n33dle to suck the air out or what I do is spike the bag like normal then with then squeeze the air out through the tubing I use a curlin so I squeeze the yellow thingy. Different pump tubing is different.
I also sometimes use gravity I didn't know why there was this video I thought everyone knew this.😂
So what you two do is “burping” an IV bag based on the explanation. It’s essential to prevent air from getting into the line since I’m pretty sure they don’t give you pumps. You want the drip chamber and bag completely devoid of air because that air can end up in your port or you. Always make sure you do what your provider instructs you to do unless you absolutely know what you’re doing!
POTS gang? POTS gang
@@Ann-p6ywhy did you spell needle like that? Weird.
@@ShadowDiora little air is not going to cause any problems
You can also invert the bag and squeeze the fluid from the drip chamber without pinching the line. I never get air in the line. It works too. This is a good method, thanks
Yea but If you don’t pinch the line ur gonna force air into the tube that goes in ur arm, that’s why ur supposed to pinch- its kinda important
If I keep watching these videos I’ll have my doctorate in no time!
Thank you! As someone whose never worked in a hospital and doesn't do anything medical for a living or hobby I'm so glad that youtube recommended this to me 🙏
Imagine you’re falling under anesthesia and you hear the surgeon playing this video.
You joke about it, but something veryyy similar actually happened to me. So, I needed a procedure to be done while I was in hospital. I had something called a PICC line, and it had to be removed because it was infected. A PICC line is lint an IV, however it lasts a lot longer and the tube part that goes into your vein, actually goes all the way to your heart. So, an infection in a tube that goes go your heart is a very bad thing, because the bacteria get into your bloodstream immediately and sent round your whole body. So you get a blood infection instantly which can then into sepsis which is even worse.
Anyway, because the tube needed to come out ASAP, and the main doctor was busy, she sent a junior doctor plus a nurse to take out my PICC line. The junior doctor was very young (he was barely older than me, his first hospital placement during his medical degree training) and I could instantly tell be was extremely nervous. He didn't even know where to start, so I knew he didn't know what he was doing. To make a joke, I said something like "oh you should see if there's a RUclips guide on how to do this, there's a uotiubr) youtube guide for everything!". Once again, I said this AS A JOKE!!! But he said "oh yeah that's a great idea" and he got his phone out and looked up a guide... And there was one!!!! He got the nurse to hold the phone with the video (he watched the vid a couple of times first), as he held the scalpel. (*** side note, skip to the end if you're a doctor or nurse and want to know more about the scalpel part). He successfully took my PICC line out in the end and he non sarcastically thanked me for thinking of a youtube tutorial... It was a WILD experience overall!
(***if anyone medical like a doctor reads this, the scalpel was needed because the SecureAcath device they used to anchor the picc into my skin had become half totally buried and the other half had eroded through my skin already so the removal video was actually kinda useless bc he just had to cut it out regardless. The video was showing how to remove the SecureAcath normally)
@unknownentity7964 it's common for even skilled surgeons to look up youtube tutorials before surgery. It helps them make sure they remember all the steps and the process will be fresh in their brain. This should never be done in front of a patient especially if the doctor seems new.
Next time I’m in hospital bed, I remember that
I don't know if you meant this sarcastically. If you were being sarcastic then I'm sorry for missing it. But if not - please don't try to fix this yourself if you end up in hospital. Please alert the nurse, and let them sort it out
Its sarcasm.@@unknownentity7964
WHY didn't I know this information before ? IVs are my panic item in a hospital setting. Seeing air bubbles in the line can cause my anxiety go sky high. Just how much air in the line is too much ?
Little bubbles of air aren't a big deal and aren't dangerous like in the movies. You would have to have whom syringes of air to matter
@@squidleyskidley how much air?
@@marianne9433 the exact amount is unknown and would depend on lots of factors, like patient history, comorbidities, body weight, location of IV, etc. However, when I did a project on this topic for nursing school, I found that generally it’s understood that it would take at least 200-300 mls of air injected at one time into a vein to be potentially fatal for an adult.
In IV tubing, even 0.2mls of air looks like a huge bubble. However most IV tubing holds only around 10-20 mls of fluid total.
So you would have to have the ENTIRE tubing full of air pushed into your veins ten times to be in peril- which is impossible
Be sure to leave it in the patient's room for 45 minutes minimum first so the pump can play them a full musical
I saw a hilarious video where someone replaced the Alaris pump infusion finished alarm noise with the lil music that washing machines play when they've finished washing and it cracked me up haha
@@unknownentity7964 My last washing machine had a literal song it would play when done, that was like 1 minute long lmao
I love showing students and brand new nurses all kinds of tips and tricks of the trade!
Didn’t go looking for this but so incredibly helpful. Thank you
as someone who was under not the best care for a full month, the feeling of that little thing being squeezed can be felt every time you do it even through video (ofc talking about when you do it w/o clamping the line shut
this is sooo helpful, since i might (hopefully) start iv therapy soon, and knowing how to react to issues like that does reduce worries
Dude... I was giving fluid to a goat yesterday and I couldn't figure out why the drip chamber filled up!! Thank you!
This is neat, I have a large aquarium and we do basically the same thing to start our siphons!
Honestly, your natural instinct as a nurse/medical practitioner will teach you how to do this lmao like literally no one taught me that this is what should be done.
I needed this tip a few months back, but thank you for sharing
Thank you! I never knew that could be fixed!
I figured that one out on my own years ago. Gotta get that excess fluid out.
I mean, it's not that big of a deal. You don't *have * to get the excess out. That is, unless you're running the whole bag via gravity and you need to visualise the drip rate in order to calculate the flow rate. But that's a pretty niche case, and I don't know many hospitals that still just use gravity to run their fluids (especially not any specific infusions). Pumps all the way
I aint scared of the needles, im scared of that thing💀. That "THING" drowned my grandma.
Simply Brilliant + Reliably Simple = Scientifically Elegant!
I just left the hospital with my husband and they gave him 2 of these bags.. I was a nurse but never knew this could happen and now that I know I could prevent this if my husband runs into these issues 🥺 Bless you
You never knew that could happen? Seriously? Also, they sent him home with an IV?
What u mean? Y didnt know
@lucianograff6512 yeah...I find it really, really difficult to believe that she was/is a nurse and also that she was not aware that this could happen. I'm pretty certain that any nurse that has ever worked with IVs for more than a few weeks would HAVE to have experienced this.😏
@@PrimateProductions I'm kinda uncertain that they were ever an actual nurse too... And she writes about now being able to look out for these 'issues' in the future, as if the reservoir being too full is some kind of medical emergency that needs to be fixed immediately.
Someone non medical who watched the video might get the idea that having a full drip chamber is dangerous or something, as he doesn't explain that it's a trivial thing to have it full. So people might think it's some urgent thing that just be fixed, if a doctor is making a video on how to fix it.
That's why I don't believe that this person was a nurse at any point. The way she talks and the words she uses aren't words a nurse would use. The conclusion that she drew from watching the video is one that someone without medical knowledge would make... I hope that made sense, I struggle with finding the right words to explain my thoughts.
Also she referred to it as her husband having 'two of those bags'. A non medical person might think that the bag of fluids in the video is the only thing that'll look like that. Hence why she said 'one of those bags' because a non med person wouldn't know that just because someone had a bag that looks similar to the one in the vid, doesn't mean it's the same thing/contents.
Whereas an actual nurse (or someone like me who has extensive medical experience due to being in hospitals wayyy too much unfortunately) would say something more like "my husband had 2 bags of fluids /LR/hartmans". Or specify something more specific if it was some other type of infusion like potassium or whatever.
I hope my reasoning make some kind of sense to anyone reading this. And if not, blame my shitty body which let me get brain damage from being in status epilepticus one too many times. Just *not* what the doctor ordered lol (sorry if that joke doesn't work, if you're from a place that doesn't have that colloquialism then it will sound like I just said a random sentence lol)!
unless you need to see the drip rate to manually calculate flow it doesn't matter if the drip chamber is full. when we use bags for art lines the drip chamber gets filled to the top. doesn't affect anything.
as a 3rd Year SN, thanks. I forgot about this
I’m scratching my head here trying to figure out why would an IV chamber fill up with fluid .. should not everything be flowing properly?? so next time basically when I go into the hospital for another operation,if my IV chamber is full, I will set up and grab the IV bag pull it off of the Charlie that holds it up and pinch off and turn it upside down. Tell the nurse go back to your coffee no problem I got this.?? 😂
A full drip chamber doesn’t matter most of the time. Definitely wouldn’t recommend messing with it unless you know what you’re doing, you don’t want to inject air into yourself accidentally
I learned this very early on in EMS. Super helpful!
Experience is best Teacher.... Lolz. In my early residency i found this trick all by myself 😂
Pretty interesting. And from what I've seen in the comments, very reassuring to several people. Thanks for the tip!
I never knew that was a thing to look for! Been inpatient quite a few times
I've never had pumps when having IV's (unless one was used only during my surgery) other than that just gravity. When a bag runs out, I just clamp the line and call for the nurses. If there's issues with the IV fluids have issues with flow or something, I call for nurses to just check my IV because my veins have a tendency to expire relatively fast so IV's need to be replaced. The joys of EDS I guess... The place that tends to last the best for me is having the IV at the base of my left thumb.
Actual question I'd like an answer to; if I do introduce air to the line, what should I do? Call the nurse frantically and track the bubble as it goes through the line? If it gets close enough to the needle, should I unscrew the line connected to the needle and take the tube out? Or would that be alright?
Lol, learned about this today at work when compounding hazards and chemo. It was like my coworker showed me fire lol.
20cc air in line never hurt anyone….😊
He blocked off the tubing so no air is getting past the bottom of the drip chamber while he's doing that manoeuvre. It's not going to introduce any air into the tubing
As a nurse I needed this tip last week. Is it possible to do with blood?
For my job I’m no where near a tube set that’s used for patients but I do similar manipulations to get bubbles out of the line for further compounding so I don’t introduce bubbles into my final source container
I always thought there was a checkvalve in the line, thanks.
I'm going to try like hell to never see a hospital again in all my life .
I think you need something like 20ccs to cause an embolism. A few bubbles won't kill you. To be safe I usually bleed the line more than is necessary.
Bubbles can clog up the line, you're right that their is no embolism risk
I became a lot less nervous of bubbles my iv line the first time I had to have a bubble echo. Holy crap that was scary as he🏒🏒. I said you’re gonna do what??
From 1 to 10. How painful would you say it is to get an IV in the foot without anesthesia?
I would just like a doctors opinion, cus i tried it, and it hurts
I really needed this video!!!!!!
A better way is to keep the spike upright turn the fluid bag upside down and put it below the level of the spike. This way doesn't risk air entering the tubing.
Make sure to clamp the bottom and not start pumping the patients blood
When I get procedures done I like to keep the empty IV bag if they allow me to after it finish.
Why????
Yeah, um why?
It’s a wierd interest in hospital supplies, it’s also a kink I have too
@@tetra3ne56scur3that's.... Unusual. Still, I'd rather have a medical kink that the medical PTSD that a life of growing up in hospital more than I'm out of it have given me. Wanna trade lol if you live my life you get to have endlesss medical devices. A bajillion IV infusions and medications each day, ventilator +tubing, stomach draining tubes, intestinal tube, bladder tube, central line tube that goes in your chest into your heart, tracheostomy tubes. All the medical shit you could ever want lol and in return I get your body lol
@@tetra3ne56scur3 what the fuck is wrong with you
If it’s hooked up to a pump (which they almost always are) then it doesn’t matter. It’s only there to set drip rate which the pump does. Also, you don’t have to pinch the line, the bag is a vacuum so it doesn’t have any air in it. This is an OR so they don’t use pumps. I highly recommend you leave the nurses to do their jobs and if it’s full and on a pump, leave it alone.
Instructions Unclear.
The patient is Dancing and turning Blue.
I'm going to be honest with you: I'm an engineer so I don't know when this would ever come up or why this was in my feed, but I'll keep this in mind
So glad I just learned this for my kangaroo pouch
Is this for the nurse or the patient??
Ideally, for the nurse. Patients shouldn't be messing with their own IVs (unless they're trained to do so, such as if they usually have IVs at home like me). But even then, it's still best to leave it for the nurse to sort out
Well i never ! 😂 learnt something new again ! Merci Doctor K !
Helpful for gravity tube feedings, too.
WOW! Beauty and brains!
Nurses will let the alarm go for an hour before attending IV bags. It's impossible to get a good night's rest with those people so you got to DIY family member! This will be handy for those who use hospitals. They are THE most dangerous place to be.
Problem is with modern machines meant to catch the tiniest of bubbles, the IV will shut off completely and ding constantly anyway.
I get regular infusions, so I always check my entire line for kinks, make sure the clips are released and that the bag is dripping steadily before the nurse/attending leaves the room for the first time.
I’ve also learned to keep an eye on the flow rate, because there have been several times they have gotten that wrong, or started the fluids but not the meds.
You're absolutely right about the sleep part. I have lived failure which caused my kidneys to fail. When they were failing I was recovering from a coma, and I didn't get real sleep really for nearly 6 days after I was out of the ICU.
The only reason why I know I got some sleep was my roommate. Told me my coma did me in. I asked why he says that. He said I stop talking mid sentence then pick up right where I left after 3 minutes.
I was micro sleeping!
Anyway the noise is annoying. Regular IVs of fluid is fine if the nurse does the catheter right.
Albumin and something called an IDPN (Calories)
Is super annoying. Goes off constantly. I had other medicines do it too, but can't recall the name.
Right now for me though it is my low blood pressure. It always triggers the machines! At dialysis it is so annoying getting snapped awake by my machine every 30 minutes. Can't nap for the four hours due to it, and feel bad for the techs who have to come over to mute it.
Most likely, the pump is not beeping because the drip chamber is full, like in this video. For starters, drip chambers like that are generally only used when the bag is being run via gravity, not a pump. So the drip chamber is used so you can verify that the fluid is running through and you can calculate the flow rate via the timing of the drips.
Even if they do use tubing with a drip chamber with a pump, chances are that the pump is beeping for other reasons, such as occlusion in the IV from bending the arm/hand of IV site. Or, micro bubbles are being sensed by the pump (such a nuisance). Or the pump is sensing too much resistance to the flow, if the IV placed in a bad spot or is starting to tissue.
Due to how much I've been in hospital, I know how to use their pumps and know how to deal with most causes of beeping. So I deal with it without needing to call a nurse. Obviously, some causes I can't deal with. Such as if it's beeping because it's finished the infusion. I have many IV infusions, IV treatments and IV meds at home so I'm veryyy used to all sorts of pumps. So when I'm in hospital, the nurses often give me sort of permission to deal with it when I can
@@dianapennepacker6854I wish hospitals gave more of a focus on making sure patients have a good night's rest!! That's a crucial part of healing and they seem to do the opposite!!
I understand how you feel, when it seems like you're being pumped through with every medication under the sun! Every day, I have 3-4 continuous IV infusions running, plus TPN (IV nutrition plus IV lipids =fat), IV fluids, manyyy IV meds through the day, plus various intermittent infusions that I need throughout the day too. Even when I'm home from the hospital, I still don't get a break from the medicines, the pumps beeping, the monitors beeping! If it isn't one of my many IV pumps beeping, then it'll be my ventilator beeping, or my oxygen and heart rate monitor beeping, or my oxygen concentrator beeping, or my wheelchair beeping because the battery is dying or my bed beeping because the motor thingy that keeps air flowing round it is disconnected... Soo so many beeps....
My inner elbow hurt from watching that 🥶
Really wish this video or the nurses shared how to do this with me!
Instruction unclear, my friend died
Thank you!🙌🏼
Will this stop the beeping??? I get migraines too.....
No. The pump needs to be reset to stop it. Most pumps anyway.
If the IV is in the bed of your arm, keep your arm straight. The IV isn’t a needle once placed, it’s a plastic tube that’s pushed into your vein OFF of the needle. That tube gets kinked and causes the beeping usually.
Not really, because the pump beeping is gonna be for other reasons, such as the patient's arm is bent etc and the IV is in their arm and so on
Then we die cause we played Doc while the Doc was choking over their sammich cause my heart stopped. Damn you…
Good for the patient to know if they see this happening and can alert the staff.
Patient be like:
"Aww. AAAAWW!! STOP THAT! DON'T YOU KNOW IT HURTS!?"
Glad youtube tells me this person is a licensed doctor in the us
My dad (when i still lived with him) would sometimes purposely squeeze that thing sometimes to make my remicade infusions "go faster"
Instructions unclear, I drank it...
Not a professional medic but a professional patient, after a long time in the hospital me and mom just did this after learning from the nurses lmao
And a whole lotta other stuff too
Knew it way before you said it but thanks for sharing this to everyone ❤❤
I'ma be OK with the professionals do that😊
I wish I knew this sooner for my cat. Would've saved a lot of stress.
Why use vented tubing on a regular bag? I've only seen it on glass bottle setups like albumin
I needed to see this last week 😂
Can I admit
I miss the cold feeling in my veins when I had these
Sweet now I know how to isekai myself next time I'm in the hospital
Was a nurse for 40 years, never knew this! 😎
I always thought these were a hard plastic 🤯
I was getting an IV once, but the bag was taking a really long time to be empty, so they set it for the IV to stop pumping liquids into me after about 2 hours so they wouldn't have to check on me ever 40 minutes to see if the bag was empty. Once it was empty it kept going and was supposed to for another hour and I slowly watched the tube fill with air bubbles. I didn't know what to do, but luckily the machine detected them before they went into my body. I was just wondering if this was standard practice??
The patient in the room: 👁️ 👄 👁️
I don't know why this is a bad situation or when in my life I might be in a position to experience it, but I'm still bookmarking it just in case.
Pdiddy taking notes from prison
I still remember watching air bubbles moving towards my canula. Bit unnerving 😂
This was done and tested on a live patient
This is helpful for my sim lab setups.🤩
What is that vapor above the fluid? AIR
I worked in vetmed before working with humans, and lemme tell you this does NOT work when giving SQ fluids (unfortunately the chamber fills up a lot of the time because we would squeeze the bag to make it go faster, no pump for SQ fluids). It gets some bubbles in the line and then it crackles under the pet’s skin. Air in the line isn’t that big of a deal but when you give the pet back to the owner….they can hear and feel crackles and people freak tf out.
But surely if you are kinking the tubing just below the drip chamber in order to close it off completely, then no air would get further down the tubing while you're doing this manouver? Unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning. I have a couple of subq treatments/medications myself, but one is via syringe driver and one is via a straight push. Is there a specific reason why you don't use a driver /pump for subq fluids on animals? Or just bc gravity works well enough and is self limiting if one infusion site gets overloaded?
@@unknownentity7964 because we don’t send thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment (pumps) home with clients just to give like 100 mL SQ. Plus keeping the pet still and not moving is hard, and it’s not like there’s a catheter or something to hold the needle in, the owner has to physically hold the needle in. You just can’t use a pump SQ, it doesn’t work like that. And we don’t clamp the line just below the chamber? You clamp it on the other end by the needle. The crackling under the skin isn’t dangerous it’s just annoying. Giving things SQ is way different in animals than humans, they have a lot more loose skin and space under there to give stuff. Cats in particular do very very well with SQ fluids-when we do IV we have to put in a catheter and keep them in a cage with a cone on and constant supervision to hook them up to a pump. No cat wants to sit in the hospital for a whole day when we could do it SQ at home with the owner way faster. Sure, IV might be better for certain conditions, but it’s borderline cruel to do it all the time because they get so stressed.
Instructions unclear, paitent now has air embolism
It takes quite a lot of air … ask someone ; a bubble = ok ok ok . Not like in the movies. I was a bit scared and all the staff told me the same thing. When I have to give a shot to my dog … it is the same I mean in a blood vessel. A tiny bubble = ok A full 💉 no no
This just made me have the feeling I had getting saline over night before surgery
Thanks, I don’t think I’ll ever need to know this unless the apocalypse occurs but thanks
Great tip. Thanks!
I’ll keep this in mind next time I’m hooked up to an IV
I just had surgery and this is pretty cool😂
I doubt I'd DIY it, but if it kept filling up, I'd tell the nurse how to do it. 😂
Some of us ME doesn't know what you're talking about. I've been putting off surgery for a long time. Now I'm laying here crying bc I'm in sooo much pain.
I would say thats a good sterile technique … I sometimes use it
But I found my self using the “ unplug replug “ technique
Where you unplug the line from the bag wait a few seconds to draw some air, then replug it in
what you say about it !!?
I I wouldn’t recommend it though as it more prone for infection and some IV bags have bad seals and starts to leaks when you unplug them
I got stuck in a nursing competency because of this… it was for a blood transfusion. In the competence I got stuck and I had to lose that first attempt because I just couldn’t think. Duh, blood is only compatible with normal saline…. So yeah I guess I wasn’t thinking of turning the bag red. So yeah…
i just did it throughout years as a nurse and i always think im crazy to always did this. turns out it is a common practice lmao (i swear i never saw my colleague did this)
I taught my home care iv patients this so i didnt get called at home....called trouble shooting. 😂
Tell me you’re an anesthesiologist without telling me you’re an anesthesiologist. I learned this from my dad…who is an anesthesiologist 😂