Heparin vials

Re: Heparin vials

Nick Shackleton — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:35:14 GMT

[quote user="Angiy Michael"]

[quote user="Steph Worsley"]

you put the whole 5 ml's into a bag??????????????

I can't remember exactly how much we use but it's a fraction of a ml into 500ml bag and tbh it's prob not needed at all a lot of human hospitals don't use hep any more, there are no obvious benefits (and some obvious disadvantages - tiny animals who really don't need a lot of hep, animals with thrombocytopaenia or other coagulation problems)

[/quote]

Steph is right..it's not commonly used in human practice anymore...we flush with saline and if that fails we re-cannulate. The risk of over heparinisation is considered too high and there are few proven benefits to out weigh this in terms of flushing. XX

[/quote]

I concur being a veterinary defectee too

Re: Heparin vials

Angiy Michael — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 03:01:33 GMT

[quote user="Steph Worsley"]

you put the whole 5 ml's into a bag??????????????

[/quote]

Re: Heparin vials

chloehaddow — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:28:24 GMT

We get heparin 5000IU in 5ml (so 1000 in 1 ml) from NVS and use 1.25mls - this works out as 1250IU in 100ml bag of saline, we discard this every fortnight. Hope this helps

Re: Heparin vials

Mark Hedberg — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:06:03 GMT

The BSAVA Formulary (7th edition) says:

Catheter maintenance, 1250IU in 100ml water for injection.

Injectable formulations: 1,000-25,000 IU/ml solutions.

Cheers,

Mark

Re: Heparin vials

emvn80 — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:15:53 GMT

Complicated and controversial topic as to whether heparin is even required to flush peripheral catheters but the generally suggested cocentration is 2iu/mL. Previously 10iu/mL was suggested when I started nursing (>12 years ago) but that is generally no longer recommended due to the risk of over heparinisation of our smaller patients,

Re: Heparin vials

Anna Rayne — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:50:09 GMT

Yes the whole 5ml, I will go and double check dose tomorrow though, I know its in one of the BSAVA books, as we had to work it out somewhere else I worked. Thats unless I'm going mad. We haven't got any left for me to look at the bottle maybe it was 5000 iu/5ml. The recipe was already set when I started here. That would make 10iu/ml.

I know in past you could get much more concentrated heparin and then did only put less than a ml in to make it up but we don't seem to be able to get it, that was another practice?

We don't use buckets of it, but replace the bag on a weekly basis. Have used sterile water in the past elsewhere too.

Re: Heparin vials

Vicky RVN — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:41:51 GMT

[quote user="Catherine Raymond"]

Always used to put a tiny fraction into a full 100ml water for injection bottle

[/quote]

That's what we did. Can't remember how much we used though.

Re: Heparin vials

Catherine Raymond — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:40:31 GMT

I've known practices that put sterile water into a heparin blood vacutainer and use that. Always used to put a tiny fraction into a full 100ml water for injection bottle

Re: Heparin vials

Steph Worsley — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:28:31 GMT

you put the whole 5 ml's into a bag??????????????