My patient has just been diagnosed with sinus tachycardia and has been prescribed Metoprolol Tartrate 25mg.(half a pill twice a day). It seems like a roll a coaster ride high and low pulse, before and after the drug. Is this way it works?
It’s imperative that the physician’s orders be followed. Your concerns can and should be brought to their attention but it is not your call to change the orders/instructions. You do not have the depth of education to understand how dangerous this is or the liability you’re opening yourself (and your employer) up to.
Example, my father’s target heart rate and blood pressure are actually below what is considered “normal.” Because of his complex cardiac issues, it is his therapeutic range that helps prevent a stroke or heart attack. If I chose to follow the advice of the internet and hold his medication because his pulse was low, it could potentially kill him. And there are many medications that require time to build up in the body to achieve best results. By starting and stopping, the therapeutic level is never achieved.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen well-intentioned family members, caregivers, CNAs and med techs skirt the dr’s orders with tragic and sometimes lethal results.
I get that you find “providers” frustrating and I get that you care about your client but there are LAWS. You are making medical decisions without the authority, the license or the education. Not okay.
Please realize you should get a doctors order If you are holding doses. Only doctors or physician extenders (PA, CRNP) can write orders. If you are regularly holding the dose because of low HR discuss it with the providers & have them write it as an order. See if the doctor can prescribe a sleeping aide for her.
I appreciate what you are saying, but too many providers “go by the book”. In my patient’s case if I did not intercede they would have been worse off. I do let the providers know what we did do. Keep in mind providers are not gods.
My dad takes this med and has for quite awhile. His pulse and BP stay really steady. It's usually the same no matter when it's checked and we have a home meter that we check on it occasionally too.
As a CG watch your patient for s/s low blood pressure, feeling faint, standing up & dropping their blood pressure.
Speak to the family about your concerns so they can discuss them with the prescribing doctor.
Metoprolol tartrate is a very commonly prescribed beta blocker. You can look up nursing considerations in caring for a person on a beta blocker. Ask the doctor for parameters to “hold” this Med if heart rate goes below the level the doctor specifies.
Metoprolol Tartrate is considered a "fast acting" medication and is often taken in small dosages several times a day. It produced a roll-a-coaster ride in heart rate and blood pressure when I took it to reduce blood pressure. Coming off of it significantly increases heart attack risk and causes anxiety in some people, but I stopped taking it because it aggravated my asthma (in fact it should never have been prescribed to me because of my severe asthma, a little fact the hospital doctor missed during a 10 day stay for cellulitis). When a doctor prescribed this as a first blood pressure medication for my nephew, I sent him back to the doctor for something else since dizziness and reflex impairment when operating heavy equipment or driving are well known side effects and my nephew worked in construction, operating heavy equipment and often walking on roofs and beams dozens of feet above the ground. The doctor is the expert, but patients (or their family) need to read those medication enclosures because sometimes the doctor misses something in the personal history that contraindicates a particular drug.
NEVER discontinue ANY heart or blood pressure medication without a doctor's supervision. There are lots of good drugs out there so call the doctor and discuss your concerns so he/she has an opportunity to consider something more appropriate or with less distressing side effects.
Presumably a cardiologist prescribed this for the tachycardia? Your patient (or friend, if I interpret your profile correctly) needs to raise the pulse fluctuation issue with either a cardio doctor or whatever doctor prescribed it. The dose may need to be adjusted, or a different drug used.
But either way, this is a question for a doctor. Perhaps you can make a conference call with your patient and the doctor tomorrow to get this addressed, ASAP.
You may want to research the drug, using the PDR (gold standard for drug info years ago; don't know if it still is):
It’s imperative that the physician’s orders be followed. Your concerns can and should be brought to their attention but it is not your call to change the orders/instructions. You do not have the depth of education to understand how dangerous this is or the liability you’re opening yourself (and your employer) up to.
Example, my father’s target heart rate and blood pressure are actually below what is considered “normal.” Because of his complex cardiac issues, it is his therapeutic range that helps prevent a stroke or heart attack. If I chose to follow the advice of the internet and hold his medication because his pulse was low, it could potentially kill him. And there are many medications that require time to build up in the body to achieve best results. By starting and stopping, the therapeutic level is never achieved.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen well-intentioned family members, caregivers, CNAs and med techs skirt the dr’s orders with tragic and sometimes lethal results.
I get that you find “providers” frustrating and I get that you care about your client but there are LAWS. You are making medical decisions without the authority, the license or the education. Not okay.
Speak to the family about your concerns so they can discuss them with the prescribing doctor.
Metoprolol tartrate is a very commonly prescribed beta blocker. You can look up nursing considerations in caring for a person on a beta blocker. Ask the doctor for parameters to “hold” this Med if heart rate goes below the level the doctor specifies.
I have asked the PCP to review his vitals as I keep them online for them to see.
NEVER discontinue ANY heart or blood pressure medication without a doctor's supervision. There are lots of good drugs out there so call the doctor and discuss your concerns so he/she has an opportunity to consider something more appropriate or with less distressing side effects.
But either way, this is a question for a doctor. Perhaps you can make a conference call with your patient and the doctor tomorrow to get this addressed, ASAP.
You may want to research the drug, using the PDR (gold standard for drug info years ago; don't know if it still is):
https://www.pdr.net/drug-summary/Metoprolol-Tartrate-metoprolol-tartrate-3114.5976
Read the Contraindications/Precautions section, and do a page search for all references to Tachycardia. You can see how complex these issues are.
But this would just be to familiarize yourself with the drug so you can help your patient discuss it when she/he/you call the doctor.