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Bayard

(21,805 posts)
Tue Apr 7, 2020, 01:09 PM Apr 2020

You can't use ventilators without sedatives. Now the US is running out of those, too.

“It’s like having a car without gas.”

......To save a Covid-19 patient’s life with a ventilator, you also need an ample supply of medications, both to be able to use the machine and to prevent agonizing pain. Experts say there’s a worrisome shortage of those, too — one that’s only expected to grow worse.

“The minute you talk about ventilators you need to talk about medications,” says Esther Choo, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. Choo says hospitals are already running out of medications like fentanyl, versed, propofol, and even neuromuscular blockades, what she calls “everyday bread and butter medications,” the drugs needed to induce and maintain sedation while on a ventilator. “Ventilators can’t really be used without these medications.”

In severe cases of Covid-19, the patient's’ own immune system can cause their lungs to fill with fluid. At this point, ventilators are a critical tool for keeping people alive. Medical staff insert a tube deep into the lungs in a process called intubation, in order to deliver more oxygen from a ventilator than the patient can inhale on their own.

“You can imagine if I tried to shove a plastic tube down your throat, it’s a very human reflex not to let someone do that,” Choo says. “So we place people in deep sedation.” After the tube is placed in the trachea, patients have to stay sedated — in the case of some Covid-19 patients, that can last for several weeks. Without the right medications, “that experience can be agonizing,” Choo says.

https://www-vox-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/4/6/21209589/coronavirus-medicine-ventilators-drug-shortage-sedatives-covid-19


As if we didn't have enough to worry about already. Is tRump preparing for this in any way?

12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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You can't use ventilators without sedatives. Now the US is running out of those, too. (Original Post) Bayard Apr 2020 OP
K&R SheltieLover Apr 2020 #1
Are most of those drugs Ohiogal Apr 2020 #2
The problem is increased demand worldwide along with disruption in the supply chain dalton99a Apr 2020 #5
I was intubated once after major spinal surgery where they had to go in from the front. SharonAnn Apr 2020 #3
Greatest healthcare system in the world, ladies and gentlemen! Coventina Apr 2020 #4
It's such a joke. smirkymonkey Apr 2020 #11
Agreed! Coventina Apr 2020 #12
There are some truly terrifying stories in the Reddit thread about this. Crunchy Frog Apr 2020 #6
Now I understand why Hydroxychloroquine MIGHT work. Tucker08087 Apr 2020 #7
Sniffing around in the gutter looking to make even more $$... 2naSalit Apr 2020 #8
I'm sure it's to benefit them in some way financially. Tucker08087 Apr 2020 #9
K & R Duppers Apr 2020 #10

dalton99a

(81,065 posts)
5. The problem is increased demand worldwide along with disruption in the supply chain
Tue Apr 7, 2020, 01:25 PM
Apr 2020

China supplies the raw ingredients that go into hundreds of drugs that are considered "essential"





SharonAnn

(13,766 posts)
3. I was intubated once after major spinal surgery where they had to go in from the front.
Tue Apr 7, 2020, 01:14 PM
Apr 2020

They kept me sedated for 3 days during that experience.

 

smirkymonkey

(63,221 posts)
11. It's such a joke.
Thu Apr 9, 2020, 06:16 AM
Apr 2020

My greatest fear in the world is to reach a state like that and not have the drugs available to keep me sedated and comfortable. I think I would go mad.

Crunchy Frog

(26,548 posts)
6. There are some truly terrifying stories in the Reddit thread about this.
Tue Apr 7, 2020, 01:28 PM
Apr 2020

People don't always get sedated when they should be.

Tucker08087

(621 posts)
7. Now I understand why Hydroxychloroquine MIGHT work.
Tue Apr 7, 2020, 01:39 PM
Apr 2020

I have been saying that this medication is an immunosuppressant, and the only way it would work is if, during the incubation period, the virus becomes autoimmune in nature. That sentence about CV19 attacking a patient’s lungs using his/her own immune system seems to suggest that the severe respiratory failure in some patients is an autoimmune response.

And the rest of the article makes be sick. Where is Big Pharma? Or are the sedatives being taken by the Feds like my Lupus medicine?

2naSalit

(86,048 posts)
8. Sniffing around in the gutter looking to make even more $$...
Tue Apr 7, 2020, 02:26 PM
Apr 2020

Besides, we aren't suffering enough pain to get them aroused anymore.

Tucker08087

(621 posts)
9. I'm sure it's to benefit them in some way financially.
Tue Apr 7, 2020, 02:34 PM
Apr 2020

IF it is actually working on some people, this would be the only thing that makes sense. You don’t take an immunosuppressant to kill a virus. It’s completely counterproductive UNLESS it becomes autoimmune in nature very rapidly, and that’s unprecedented and a beast that I’m not sure we have ever faced.

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