subject: A Few Facts On Iv Therapy [print this page] Sometimes, it's necessary to introduce medication or some other substance directly into a patient's blood stream. Other methods just won't do. This is where intravenous therapy, or IV therapy, comes into use. This is commonly known as a drip, due to the way the IV bag is set up, with a catheter to provide a steady drip of the substance into the patient's body. Most people have already experienced the most common form of IV therapy, however - the hypodermic needle.
When most people think of IV therapy, they think of introducing medicine into the blood with one of those bags on a metal stand, but an IV drip can have a great many uses aside from that. It could be used to feed patients who would otherwise suffer malnutrition because they can't eat. It can replace fluids, especially blood loss. There is no better or faster way to get fluids into the body and circulating around quickly than IV therapy.
There are a number of substances that are best delivered intravenously for medical purposes. Some of the most common are listed below.
Volume expanders are useful when the blood stream is running low. If there simply isn't enough blood circulating in the patient's body, these can help restore blood pressure. These substances are known as artificial blood or blood surrogates. It isn't actually blood, so vital red blood cells are not provided. What these substances do, however, is stimulate the heart to circulate the red blood cells that remain with more force and vigor. It speeds the production of new blood, so the patient can recover more quickly.
Blood surrogates are only useful when the blood loss hasn't been too large. When significant amounts of blood have been lost, a literal blood transfusion is necessary. This is why blood donors are so very vital - there is no way to produce blood artificially. Situations such as these are literally a matter of life or death, and the right blood at the right time is literally life-saving. Once, it was necessary to use whole blood, but doctors have learned to separate blood into its component parts, the better to give the patient exactly what is necessary to speed the patient on the way to recovery.
Sometimes, a patient will have such severe gastrointestinal difficulties that he or she cannot eat food in the usual manner, or even eat through a tube directly through the stomach. IV therapy could save such a person's life, providing nutrition intravenously. Known as total parenteral nutrition (TPN), this type of feeding can sustain a patient for quite a long time, if necessary. The record for a person surviving on TPN is 35 years. Of course, most people who need such measures will be fed intravenously for much less time than that.
Last, but not least, are the various medications that have to be introduced directly into the bloodstream for maximum effect. Most of them are delivered with the needle so dreaded by many patients, but sometimes a slower and steadier approach is necessary. This method of IV therapy, so commonly seen in movies and television shows about medicine, has literally saved millions of lives.
