Sunday, May 23, 2010

Heart Question!?

If epinephrine is used on people during cardiac arrest would using an epipen on someone help them if they were having a heart attack and the ambulance or hospital was over twenty minutes away.
Answers:
No! Epinephrine is used in cardiac arrest, not a heart attack. Epinephrine is a sympathomimetic - a beta adrenergic receptor agonist. What this means is that epi will increase the heart rate, increase the blood pressure, increase the force of contractions, irritate the heart, and increase the oxygen demand of the heart. When someone is having a heart attack, the last thing we want to do is cause the heart to work harder.Now, in cardiac arrest, the heart is not working at all (okay, that's not necessarily true, but for our purposes here this is a reasonable explanation). By administering epinephrine to a patient in cardiac arrest, we are stimulating the heart and increasing the chance of converting it back into a viable rhythm.
I would only ask a cardiologists this. I would hate for you to get some bad life threatening situation information. Get real medical advice and don't listen to anyone else. This is a big issue!
I agree, you should probably consult a doctor about this to get a more reliable answer. However, I guess if the person is prone to/ likely to have a heart attack and they have an epipen, they should instruct their family memebers/ have a card on them explaining what to do if such an attack occurs. If it's anything like having an alergic reaction to a bee sting and going into anaphylactic shock, then using the epipen could save their life until medical help arrives.
firemedicgm gave the correct answer. "Possible" meds to be given in the event of an MI while awaiting the ambulance include aspirin and sublingual nitroglycerin not EPI
but you would have been uncosncious, and epinephrine may not be useful in a heart attack; it's only useful when the heart stops beating and needs it to restart the heart
Epinephrine is used in cardiac arrest to make the heart more susceptible to electric shock, which converts the heart back to a viable rhythm.Without knowing the heart's rhythm at the time of arrest, it would be unwise to give epinephrine.You would be better off learning CPR and supporting the person that way. Knowing where to find an automatic external defibrillator might also be a good idea.

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