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Hydralazine trade name a presen the indication for this medication is hypertension the way it works it’s actually an arterial vasodilator and i want you to remember that it’s an arterial vasodilator because we’re going to talk about this later and why this is so important so therapeutic class is antihypertensive pharmacologic classes vasodilator we give this medication
A lot in the neuro icu because a lot of these patients can develop severe hypertension or you might see like hypertensive crisis come in and so we may give hydralazine you might have hydralazine for bp systolic blood pressure greater than you know 180 so hydralazine is a common medication given for hypertension because we can give it iv and it can bring the blood
Pressure down quickly remember it’s an arterial basil dialer one of the side effects of this is that it can cause tachycardia i want you to think about that really quickly i want you to think about for just one second why this would cause tachycardia remember we said this is an arterial basil that died later so our arteries are going to vasodilate right what is
Our biggest artery in the body the biggest rd artery is our aorta so as blood is coming out of our left ventricle it’s going to go first through the aorta out into the body so as we give hydralazine it’s going to cause our aorta to vasodilate now our heart is okay with that but it needs to compensate it wants to keep our cardiac output the same so in order to keep
Cardiac output the same it is going to start beating faster all right we have a re order gets bigger so the blood the heart needs to pump quicker to fill that space and get the same amount of blood coming out of the heart that’s what it wants to do wants to keep cardiac output and tissue perfusion everything the same that it was so we make our aorta bigger we have
To increase the rate to keep that going the same so we really need to keep that in mind if you have a patient who is hypertensive and tachycardic already giving them the hydralazine may cause their heart rates even climb up more and then will it be in the case where we’re giving the total or something to lower heart rate again it can also cause sodium retention
Arrhythmias and angina you need to monitor your blood pressure closely so you don’t just want to give this to your purse you want to take your eight o’clock vitals and say okay systolic blood pressure was 190 i’m going to give them 10 milligrams of hydralazine iv right now and then never come back to check the blood pressure again till midnight you want to make
Sure that it worked first of all and you also want to make sure it didn’t do too much and bring their blood pressure down too far you need to instruct the patients on how to take their own blood pressure if they end up on hydralazine oral hydrolyzing when they go home you want them to understand how to take the blood pressure why it’s important that they monitor
It really closely last thing you want to keep in mind here is that you want to use caution with mao eyes all right this is a really important medication to know this is one that you will see often a lot of patients will be on oral hydralazine at home and a lot of patients in the hospital are going to end up getting prn hydralazine iv for systolic blood pressure
That is hydralazine if you have any questions be sure to let me know this has been another episode of the med master podcast by n r s ng comm to get our free cheat sheet cover the 50 most commonly prescribed medications head over to n rs ng comm slash 50 meds that’s in our s and g comm slash 50 meds thank you so much for joining me today and thank you for being
Part of the nrs ng family we’re here to help you succeed in nursing school and in life so start your journey today over a 10 rs ng comm slash 50 meds we’re glad to have you aboard you know what time it is now it’s time to go out and be your best self today happy nursing yell you you
Transcribed from video
Hydralazine Nursing Considerations, Side Effects, and Mechanism of Action Pharmacology for Nurses By NURSINGcom