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

So, one of our readers wrote in, “Ventilator removed versus tracheostomy on my dad who has passed the spontaneous breathing trials, but the ICU doctors are saying that the kidney panel is no good and that a tracheostomy should be done. Are they correct?” Well, that’s a really great question to ask, and the answer is that it depends. But generally speaking, if someone has passed the spontaneous breathing trials and the kidneys aren’t working, well there’s ways to manage that. It usually has nothing to do with doing a tracheostomy or not.

The only reason kidney failure might impact on the breathing, in particular, is if there’s not enough urine output, that the fluid balance might simply be very positive, i.e., too many fluids going in and not enough fluids going out, and that could push fluids into the lungs. And that could simply make things difficult for a patient in ICU to be weaned off the ventilator if there’s fluids on the lungs, also known as pulmonary edema.

However, if you are telling me that your dad is passing the spontaneous breathing trials, then I assume your dad is awake. He can obey commands. He has a good strong cough. His arterial blood gases are good. His chest x-rays are good. You haven’t mentioned anything about a brain injury that he can’t swallow or he’s not waking up. You haven’t mentioned any of that. So, then I would assume that all is good for your dad to be extubated, have the breathing tube removed, and then they can continue treating the kidneys, that would be my suggestion here.

But maybe there is information missing that you haven’t shared. But by the same token with what you have shared, I would say, your dad should have every reason, or you should be very optimistic and you should have every reason to believe that if he passed spontaneous breathing trials, he should have the breathing tube removed, be extubated, and hopefully can get on with his recovery in ICU, and hopefully of hospital ward or hospital floor as well.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, and we answer all questions intensive care related in the membership area or via email.

Also, if you need a medical record review, you should contact us as well. We review medical records for our clients in ICU, but also after ICU. We can do it in real time when you have a loved one in intensive care, or we can do it after intensive care. But in order for you to get best outcomes, you should have medical records reviewed while your loved one is in ICU so you can ask the right questions at the right time, very important.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel, share the video with your friends and families, click the like button, click the notification bell, and comment below what you want to see next, or what questions and insights you have from this video.

Thanks for watching.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I will talk to you in a few days.