Epi and Dopamine drip cal

[Mark the O]

I am a little embarrassed to post this but I need some help. I was sitting at the station practicing drug calculations and drip rates. I could not get this right for the life of me.

I have the formula for infusion rates but I keep getting stuck.

Dopamine drip for a 100kg pt at 10mcg/kg/min.

Epi drip for a 20kg pt at 1mcg/kg/min.

I keep getting enormous drop/min, like 3000gtts/min.

What the heck am I doing wrong.

[chbare]

You need to know a concentration to calculate a rate.

Take care,

chbare.

[tniuqs]

Sorry short on time:

http://www.gaems.net/download/drugcalc.pdf

This pdf link is free and perhaps a little review wouldn't hurt ?

[tcripp]

I am a little embarrassed to post this but I need some help. I was sitting at the station practicing drug calculations and drip rates. I could not get this right for the life of me.

I have the formula for infusion rates but I keep getting stuck.

Dopamine drip for a 100kg pt at 10mcg/kg/min.

Epi drip for a 20kg pt at 1mcg/kg/min.

I keep getting enormous drop/min, like 3000gtts/min.

What the heck am I doing wrong.

Yep - you need the size of your fluid bag + the meds. Example for the dopamine drip...standard is either 400 mg in a 250 mL bag or 800 mg in a 500 mL.

gtts = 60 gtts x 250 mL x 10 mcg x 100 kg x 1 mg I'm getting 37.5 or 38 gtts/min.

min 1 mL 400 mg kg/min 1 1000 mcg

This is using dimensional analysis - the only way I know how to calculate meds...so hope it's not too confusing...and gives you a starting point for the epi.

[Kiwiology]

We just put 1mg of adrenaline in a 1,000ml of NS and run at 2gtt/sec ... I dno, you tell me what that is

[fiznat]

CALCULATIONS

Good general drip calculation formula: CC over MG times MG times 60.

CC/MG x MG x 60

the first CC is the volume of your bag

the MG below it is the amount of drug (in milligrams) in the bag

the second MG is the order (in milligrams) per minute -- if the drug is weight based you'll have to figure that out first and plug it in here

60 is for your drip set, which I assume is a microdrip (60 gtt/sec)

The result from this equation is your drip rate per minute.

CHEATS

Dopamine (only for standard (1600 mcg/ml) bags):

Take the patient's weight in pounds, drop the last digit (so a patient with a weight of 210 lbs would turn into 21), then subtract 2 (which would make 19). That is your drip rate per minute for 5 mcg/kg/min on a 50 kg patient. If you want to double the dose, double the drip rate, etc etc.

Lidocane:

Lido clock. Draw a circle with 60 at the top, 15 at 3 o-clock, 30 at 6 o-clock, and 45 at 9 o-clock. Then write a 1 next to the 15, a 2 next to the 30, a 3 next to the 45, and a 4 at the top by the 60. Those are your drip rates. 1 mg a minute is 15 gtt/min. 2 mg/min is 30 gtt/min, etc etc.