Alternatives to Blood

[redcrossemt]

From another thread, "Titration for normal saline" (http://www.emtlife.com/showthread.php?t=13850)

theres other fluids you can play around with too, like hextend and hespen. just make sure you titrate very carefully with those cause you can only give so much.

Hextend, Hespen, or others still being used? Civilian or military only? I heard all of these products were taken off the market due to poor outcomes in civilian studies.

 

[DrankTheKoolaid]

re

Hespan used to be carried in the local ED here and i know they pulled it

 

[Flight-LP]

We carry Hespan and use it often when we cannot get blood products. I have never had an issue with it.

 

[medic89]

We briefly, and I mean very briefly, went over other colloids in class besides blood, and from what I remember, it basically boiled down to the best substitute for blood is blood, and the others weren't worth the money to be put on the trucks in our rural EMS system.

 

[Fireguy]

I know they took Hextend out of our combat lifesaver bags(first aid), I'm not sure if the combat medics still carry or not.

 

[thrilla82]

yup, hextend and hespan are still being carried and used by military medics. the reason we took it out of cls bags was because people (cls guys) would use it to help their hangovers. not the smartest thing in the world to do. i train my medics to only use it if needed and since evac times can be close to 2-4 hours, theirs been times we've had to use it. they use it to bring the radial pulse back up in boluses and then switch to lr or saline to maintain. i try to harp on them not to give to much fluid, so they dont mess with coagulation and basically flush their pts system out.