Commonly Prescribed Drug Overdoses
First Things First (assess & treat for the following)
- Begin w/ the ABCs, especially if pt is obtunded.
- Intubate pt for airway protection if pt lacks an adequate gag reflex.
- Conversely, a pt who fights intubation w/ enough vigor to require anesthetic induction drugs for intubation may not need this additional airway protection!
- Many of these drugs can cause cardiac conduction abnormalities & arrhythmias; make sure pt has a stable perfusing rhythm during the initial evaluation.
- Don’t exclusively trust the pt history or even “empty” pill bottles for planning therapy. Seek an additional source to corroborate the ingestion history.
- “The literature” suggests that empirically checking the acetaminophen level to exclude an occult co-ingestion is a low-yield test. Check it anyway!
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Last updated: April 14, 2010
Citation
"Commonly Prescribed Drug Overdoses." Pocket ICU Management, PocketMedicine.com, Inc, 2010. Anesthesia Central, anesth.unboundmedicine.com/anesthesia/view/Pocket-ICU-Management/534126/all/Commonly_Prescribed_Drug_Overdoses.
Commonly Prescribed Drug Overdoses. Pocket ICU Management. PocketMedicine.com, Inc; 2010. https://anesth.unboundmedicine.com/anesthesia/view/Pocket-ICU-Management/534126/all/Commonly_Prescribed_Drug_Overdoses. Accessed December 10, 2024.
Commonly Prescribed Drug Overdoses. (2010). In Pocket ICU Management. PocketMedicine.com, Inc. https://anesth.unboundmedicine.com/anesthesia/view/Pocket-ICU-Management/534126/all/Commonly_Prescribed_Drug_Overdoses
Commonly Prescribed Drug Overdoses [Internet]. In: Pocket ICU Management. PocketMedicine.com, Inc; 2010. [cited 2024 December 10]. Available from: https://anesth.unboundmedicine.com/anesthesia/view/Pocket-ICU-Management/534126/all/Commonly_Prescribed_Drug_Overdoses.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
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