Hi there!
Today’s article is about, “Quick Tip for Families
in Intensive Care: My Son is on the Ventilator in ICU & Off it He Will Stop Breathing Most Likely Within Minutes, Help!”
You may also watch the video here on our website https://intensivecarehotline.com/blog/quick-tip-for-families-in-intensive-care-my-son-is-on-the-ventilator-in-icu-off-it-he-will-stop-breathing-most-likely-within-minutes-help/ or you can continue reading the article below.
Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: My Son is on the Ventilator in ICU & Off it He Will Stop Breathing Most Likely Within Minutes, Help!
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.
Today, I have an email from Matt who says,
“Hi Patrik,
My son is on the ventilator but off, he will stop breathing most likely within minutes. How long can he stay on the ventilator?”
Well, thank you, Matt, for writing in and for asking that question. So, how do you know that he most likely will stop breathing within minutes? How do you know that? That’s the first question.
The next question is, is he still sedated and on opiates? Opiates are strong painkillers such as morphine or fentanyl often being used in
ICU when patients are on ventilation with a breathing tube. One of the main side effects for opiates such as morphine or fentanyl is respiratory depression, i.e., people don’t breathe when they take opiates, or they stop
breathing.
Now, I’ve been saying for the longest time here on this channel that the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is simply that they don’t know what they don’t
know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.
So, there are a number of questions here that need to be answered first. You’re saying he will stop breathing most likely within minutes, so I’ll give you a tip here.
When someone is on a ventilator with a breathing tube in intensive care or with a tracheostomy, there’s a couple of ventilation modes that you really need to understand.
One ventilation mode is that it’s a controlled ventilation mode and that means that your loved one, in this case, your son, will get mandatory breaths through the machine. Let’s just say you get 16 breaths per minute, mandatory
delivery from the machine. He doesn’t need to do any work. So, that’s one ventilation mode and he can breathe on top of that if he wants to, if he can. Then, there’s another ventilation mode, such a CPAP or pressure support where he needs to trigger every single breath. It’s also called the spontaneous ventilation mode.
So, if he is on a mandatory ventilation or such as SIMV (Synchronized
Intermittent Mandatory Ventilation) or ACV (Assist-Control Ventilation), well, he can’t really stop breathing because the machine is doing all the work for him. Now, if he’s on CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) and he needs to trigger every breath himself, if he doesn’t do that, yes, then he will most likely stop breathing, and the machine will kick in and do all the work for him.
But the
question is why? Is he on too many sedatives? Is he on opiates? Is there an underlying neurological condition? You have to look at everything when someone is critically ill in intensive care. When someone is in a situation like that, critically ill like your son, you can’t leave any stone unturned. You
need to look at all the aspects. What are blood results? What are the diagnoses? What are the medications your son is on? What are the ventilator settings? What are arterial blood gases like? So that you can check the effectiveness of mechanical ventilation.
What do chest x-rays look like? There are so many questions in a situation like that that need to be answered that you can’t look at your question just in isolation.
The biggest question is why does he stop breathing? Or why do you think he most likely will stop breathing? Is that what the intensive care team is telling you? For example, he might be hemodynamically unstable. His blood pressure might
be too low, too high. They might need to sedate him because of that, and that’s why he stops breathing. So, that’s why you need a second opinion in a situation like that.
It sounds to me with your short email, you are completely flying blind at the moment without looking at the bigger picture here. When someone is in intensive care, like your son, there are dozens of things happening simultaneously
that all need to be looked at in much detail. It’s like piecing together a complex puzzle.
Your son might be hemodynamically unstable. He might be on vasopressors. He might be on
vasodilators. That might be one of the reasons why he’s sedated and he’s on opiates. That might be the reason he might stop breathing. So, it’s a great question but the answer is that really, it depends on everything that needs to be looked at.
I’ve worked in critical care for nearly 25 years in three different countries where I also worked as a nurse manager for over 5 years. I’ve been consulting
and advocating for families in intensive care all around the world since 2013 here at intensivecarehotline.com.
Just like with yourself, Matt, we have helped so many families in intensive care, improving their situation, including saving their loved one’s life. I can confidently say that just by the work that we’ve done in over a decade, and you can have a look at our testimonial section to verify what I’m saying, that we’ve saved many lives. You can also verify that on our podcast section where we’ve done some client interviews.
That’s one of the reasons why we’ve also created membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care. You can become a member of our membership by going to intensivecarehotline.com by clicking on the membership link or by going to intensivecaresupport.org directly. In the membership, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in the membership area and via email and we answer all questions intensive care related.
In the membership, you also
have access to 21 e-books and 21 videos that I’ve exclusively written for you and recorded for you. So, once again, sharing all my expertise in intensive care with you so that you can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets the best care and treatment.
I also offer one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to you and your families directly and handhold you through the process, making sure you stay two steps ahead of the intensive care team so that you manage them, and they don’t manage you. That’s also why I talk to
doctors and nurses directly, I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked when you have a loved one, critically ill, in intensive care. I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams.
We also offer medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time. We also offer medical record reviews after intensive care so that you can get closure. We answer any unanswered questions or if you’re suspecting medical negligence, we can do that for you as well.
All of that, you get at
intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to support@intensivecarehotline.com.
If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube
channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, click the like button, click the notification bell, comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have, share the video with your friends and families.
I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show and you will get
notification for that when you are a subscriber of my YouTube channel, or you are a subscriber to our email newsletter at intensivecarehotline.com.
Thank you so much for watching.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I will talk to you in a few
days.
Take care for now.
