was in ER lots of times due to variou stuff (gallstones, excessive gas, GERD) and got an IV everytime
mom always got anxious when IV was about to end
2-3 times I was alone in ER and nurses were busy (car crash victims etc were brought in) so IVs got empty with plenty of air bubbles
only thing happened to me was in 1 of those my blood got up to the IV after 10 minutes or so but nothing else happened
why air bubbles in IVs are not an emergency or looked after instantly? When called on a empty IV (not dripping anymore) nurses act cool and cut the drip valve as if everything is normal
In: 73
Doctor here. As others have said above, small bubbles usually aren’t a problem. And yes, you probably got some small bubbles infused into your blood. We see bubbles on ultrasound when people are getting IV fluids, even when it looks like there are no bubbles in the tubing.
Bubbles in the veins go to the right side of the heart, then the lungs. They then get stuck in the pulmonary capillaries. If they are tiny, the gas dissolves into the blood. Even if they are moderate, it’s usually not a problem, because the lung can usually handle a bit of temporary obstruction to blood flow. Big amounts take too long to dissolve, and block too much blood flow. In this case, we’re talking about 350mL of air, but there have been some complications with as little as 20-50 mL.
The bigger problem is if it ends up on the arterial side. About 10% of us have a hole in our heart that connects the left and right sides, called a patent foramen ovale (PFO). It was part of how we got oxygen from mom while in the womb. It’s supposed to close up after birth, but there are people walking around with a tiny hole and don’t know. If air, or a blood clot goes through this hole, it ends up going to the rest of the body, like the brain, the gut, or the blood vessels to the heart. In this case, as little as 0.5 mL can cause a cardiac arrest. Tiny bubbles could cause strokes. If a patient has a hole in their heart, we can put filters on the IV to prevent air bubbles.
Given how common occult PFOs are, I don’t understand why we don’t have filters on all IVs all the time.
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