These are the basics about pancreatitis.
Hey everyone as men made easy’ here today i’m bringing to you a video about pancreatitis now this video is just going to be a brief overview it’s going to be specifically great for if you’re a nursing student or a new nurse or just someone wanting to touch up on the concept or the diagnosis of pancreatitis let’s talk about the pancreas just a little bit the pancreas
Is an organ on the left side of the abdomen and one of its most important functions is to make enzymes which basically help break down the food it should be have two separate enzymes for different things another one of the most important functions of the pancreas the betta cells and the pancreas releases insulin so anytime that you eat something it releases this
Insulin and so any kind of carbohydrates that you’re eating it gets ends up getting breaking down into smaller components what is pancreatitis think returns is a disease in which the pancreas becomes inflamed pancreatic damage happens when the digestive enzymes are activated before they are released into the small intestines and begin to attack the pancreas
There are two forms of pancreatitis acute and chronic now let’s get into the quick info tips about this disease that you need to know about ips level is one of the ways that we can detect whether or not an individual is in pancreatitis of course with other things as well including their symptoms and sometimes imaging typically the lipase level is three times
The normal level tip number two one of the most common symptoms of pancreatitis is left side abdominal pain nausea and vomiting sometimes individuals will also complain about left shoulder pain or left shoulder blade pain pain in between the shoulder blades and even chest pain so if you have a patient with chest pain is it also important to consider that maybe
A like this little level should be added to the labs especially if the individual is nausea and vomiting tip number three alcohol abuse is one of the most common causes of pancreatitis so this is one of the first questions that i ask the patient because they may also need to be treated for alcoholism as well there are other causes like a gallstone blocking
The ducts hypertriglyceridemia and also certain medications which you can see this list here this is a very important list to be familiar with as you see there’s lots of different kinds of medications there’s a lot of different type of actually enjoy type like answer i have like some aches diabetes medications that can have a tense they do fall pancreatitis
So anytime the i before i am even starting a patient on one of these medications i’m always asking them if they have a history of pancreatitis and then all times i may not i may not start them on these medications the tip number four these are some signs of some more emergent types of pancreatitis there they could indicate things like hemorrhagic pancreatitis
Or necrotizing pancreatitis which can be obviously is a medical emergency and it’s important to be aware of these i always think of the great earner sign is if you look on their flank area and you see any kind of bruce may indicate hemorrhagic pancreatitis well the story here is that if you see the greatest turn sign or anyway these signs this needs to report
It immediately with the greatest tournament they’re usually gonna have some bruising on the sides of that point so it’s super important to be able to at least identify and recognize even if you can’t remember the sign just know that any kind of bruising with pancreatitis is abnormal and that this individual needs emergent evaluation another sign i want to show
You real quickly here is the colon sign and it typically appears in 24 to 48 hours after someone has acute pancreatitis and this significantly increases the individuals risk before death almost by 40% per some studies in blue tip number 5 ct of the abdomen is one of the ways to confirm the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis a ct according to epocrates a ct scan the
Abdomen is not usually indicated in the first 48 hours from the diagnosis ct scan with iv contrast is the most sensitive and specific study for confirming day of pancreatitis it has a sensitivity of 90% and suppose this specificity of 100% so this is a super important to recognize on 10 minutes they’ve been individualist so that you are most likely going to be
Probably getting anything ct of the abdomen done with contrast the info tip number six you can see the basic treatment here is typically iv fluids keeping the patient in peel so it doesn’t stimulate and you can’t get enzymes any further pain control and antiemetics usually when these patients come in they are pretty restless and having some pain usually on the
Very uncomfortable another important thing to think about is what’s the actual cause of the pancreatitis is and so basically overall these are general things that are going to be done but we need to remove the offending agent so whether it’s medication or it’s alcohol or if there is a gallstone that’s blocking things it’s important that that be treated and taken
Care of and so in other words if an individual is an alcoholic we may need to put them on the seawall protocol and help them with that there’s also supplemental medications like magnesium that may need to be added for these patients as well if the causes of gallstones obviously we may need to have the patient be seen by a general surgeon or a gi doctor if there’s
An infective pancreatitis or necrotizing they may need iv antibiotics imaging guided catheter drainage or endoscopic debridement and finally tip number seven diet typically the patient is kept npo because you don’t want anything that would stimulate the pancreatic enzymes if you remember from earlier the pancreas has this job to basically break down foods with
The pancreatic enzymes and hormones what we eat when we eat the enzymes are stimulated and so this often we may cause more inflammation and the patient usually they can tell so when they eat they often become more nauseated or even start vomiting and the pain may increase well thank you for watching this video make sure to hit the like button if you like these
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Transcribed from video
Pancreatitis Basics | 7 Important Info Tips Every Healthcare Provider Should Know By Med Made EZ
