Fluid Therapy

Re: Fluid Therapy

Sandra Taylor RVN, MBVNA — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:44:13 GMT

This is my calculation and it's easy and quick.

24(hrs) so that can be changed to whatever, ie 6 /3 for deficits and such multiply by 60 then multiply by 60 again/divide by the amount of fluid..ie maint/5%/!0% etc then divide by drip factor.

EG -25 kg dog on maint 25x50=1250

24x60x60/1250/20(drip factor)= 1 drop every 3.45 secs

You can divide your 1250 by 24 to get your ml hr which is 52ml/hr

Re: Fluid Therapy

Steph Worsley — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:19:51 GMT

that makes sense fi.....i was being daft and forgetting for exams and generally in normal practice there is no such thing as a drip pump!!!!

Re: Fluid Therapy

Fiona Leathers — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:09:18 GMT

For normal maintenance you can work it out with 2 calculations which work out roughly the same.

2ml/kg/hr or 50ml/kg day

So for example a 25kg dog, it would be on 50ml/hr

Cos I like working with big numbers I would change this into drips/hr at this point

so then you have know what drip rate your giving set is - most are 20 drips per ml, some paediactric ones are 60 drips per ml.

If you have a normal 20 drips/ml giving set that would be 50ml x 20drips = 1000 drips/hr

Divide that by 60 to get drips per minute 1000/60 = 16.6drips/min

this can be divided down again to get drips per second 16.6/60 = 0.2drips/sec

Cos the giving sets can't work out fractions of drips in a second we would turn this into whole drips

1 drip every 5 seconds

I like the 2ml/kg rule as its easy to change if the vet asks for "twice maintenance" (4ml/kg) or "1.5 times maintenance" (3ml/kg

That sounded like it made sense in my head but know I've read it, seems a bit long winded! Maybe someone can explain it easier!

Re: Fluid Therapy

Steph Worsley — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:03:45 GMT

where abouts do you live? as I am holding a cpd evening in June about fluid therapy!

the basics are:

maintenance fluid is 2ml/kg/hour then this can increase depending on the state of dehydration/vomiting/diahorrea etc