Category: Respiratory

October 24, 2018

Are You CO Aware?

With the onset of colder weather, many households in the UK are turning on their heating for the first time in months. Heating appliances need chimneys and flues to work safely – and these can block up over the summer months. So autumn is traditionally the period when people get poisoned by carbon monoxide (although it can happen any time of the year!)

Carbon monoxide (CO) is produced when anything containing carbon burns or smoulders. For practical purposes, this means the burning of any kind of fuel, commonly:

Gas
Coal
Wood/Paper/Card
Oil/Petrol/Diesel – (All UK cars have a ‘catalytic converter’ in the exhaust system, which converts carbon monoxide (CO) to carbon Dioxide (CO₂), which is less poisonous. However, these converters need to warmed up – a cold car produces fatal amounts of CO in the exhaust)

CO is very poisonous. Exposure to as little as 300 parts per million (that’s just 0.03%) can prove fatal.

March 25, 2018

A-a gradient

A-a gradient = Alveolar Oxygen – arterial Oxygen

This is “relatively” simple way of working out if the paO2 on a ABG is normal, and demonstrates V/Q mismatch well. V/Q mismatch is simple terms is either an area of the lung either under ventilated(pneumonia) or under perfused (PE). Read more

February 18, 2018

COPD think VBG

Why VBG instead of ABG?

Pain – we all know and warn our patients ABG’s are painful. Patients know it to and delay presentation.
Number of bloods taken – patients attending with COPD will generally have venous bloods taken at triage. Would you want stabbing again if it could be avoided?