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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

A lot of families in intensive care come to us and they want to know what is pulmonary edema, what are the causes, and how does it get treated? So, when someone is on a ventilator in intensive care, there’s always the risk for pulmonary edema but also for pneumonia and other complications. But a lot of patients in intensive care end up with pulmonary edema.

Let’s quickly look at the most possible causes, but also let’s look at how to treat it. So, one of the most possible causes in intensive care for someone to go into pulmonary edema is simply kidney failure. If the kidneys fail and fluids are given, there’s a very good chance that your critically ill loved one might end up fluid overloaded and one way fluid overload shows up is obviously by fluids pushing into the lungs. And if someone is ventilated, you’ve got to keep the lungs as dry as possible to maximize chances to wean somebody off a ventilator.

Another common reason for a patient in intensive care on a ventilator with a breathing tube or with a tracheostomy to end up in pulmonary edema is simply cardiac issues or heart issues such as a heart attack, atrial fibrillation, any irregular heart rhythms, really, or issues such as cardiac failure or cardiomyopathy because the heart is not strong enough or beats irregular to pump fluids around the body and fluids get pushed back into the lungs.

Other common issues that end or that could result in pulmonary edema are issues such as a valve dysfunction, the atrial valve, or the myocardial valve, the mitral valve might need a repair or replacement, and that could end up in pulmonary edema as well.

So let’s look at how to fix pulmonary edema. So, number one is diuretics such as Lasix or Furosemide to increase urine output. Number two is to look at inotropes or vasopressors to increase cardiac function to increase contractility. Number three is if someone is in an irregular heart rhythm, let’s look at a medication such as amiodarone or also if someone is in AF or atrial fibrillation, amiodarone might work, digoxin might work, a cardioversion might work to get the heart back into a regular rhythm. If the valves are failing, they need to repair or replacement, that might help as well.

And last but not least, if someone is in kidney failure, dialysis might help and dialysis can remove fluids very rapidly. If the patient can tolerate it and therefore offload fluids from the lungs.

So that is my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care that’s critically ill, go and check out intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website. Like this video, comment down below what you want to see next and subscribe to my YouTube channel for new updates for families in intensive care. You can also send me an email to [email protected].

Take care for now.