Constipation
I'm not sure if this is practicing good medicine or not, but coworkers and I were sitting around the other night discussing the various alternatives to patient care (read: ways to avoid actually completing the order) when a doctor orders an enema on a young and otherwise healthy patient. Really, we'll do anything to get out an enema administration. They're not fun. Trust me.
In this conversation, I mentioned the best constipation remedy I've ever heard of - it was a comment from Hood Nurse, and I still laugh about it and wish I could tell my patients this:
If you are young, healthy, and just suffer from an unfortunate lack of fiber in your diet and subsequently think "should I go to the ER because I haven't pooped in four days?" then the answer is no. Go home, drink one cup of black coffee, eat one taco bell taco or burrito with hot sauce, and then go for a jog around the block. If you don't run the risk of shitting your pants before making it back to your house, then you may come to the ER and we will give you a bottle of mag citrate.
Pretty sure that's not an exact science though, so take it with a grain of salt. And don't sue me if it doesn't work, because this is the internet and contrary to popular opinion not everything on here is true.
In this conversation, I mentioned the best constipation remedy I've ever heard of - it was a comment from Hood Nurse, and I still laugh about it and wish I could tell my patients this:
If you are young, healthy, and just suffer from an unfortunate lack of fiber in your diet and subsequently think "should I go to the ER because I haven't pooped in four days?" then the answer is no. Go home, drink one cup of black coffee, eat one taco bell taco or burrito with hot sauce, and then go for a jog around the block. If you don't run the risk of shitting your pants before making it back to your house, then you may come to the ER and we will give you a bottle of mag citrate.
Pretty sure that's not an exact science though, so take it with a grain of salt. And don't sue me if it doesn't work, because this is the internet and contrary to popular opinion not everything on here is true.