Porter Hospital Blog

A new study indicates that an IV bag with a diluted sugar solution – D5LR – may help sweeten your experience right after surgery. As reported today on Channel 7 news, a  new study from Yale University, which was  presented at this month’s  American Society of Anesthesiologists , delivers good news for all patients who fear the nausea and vomiting that often follows surgery. Let’s take a look at the subject of post-operative nausea and vomiting, and the new information from the study.
Post operative nausea and vomiting is one of the most common complications of surgery, and can produce other problems such as dehydration, wounds opening from the vomiting, and prolonged hospital stays.
Even without further complications, anyone who has experienced this problem after surgery can tell you it’s a very miserable complication that is often felt to be worse than the pain they may experience from the surgery itself.
For these reasons, our anesthesiologists and post-operative nurses spend a great deal of time and energy working to keep patients from having nausea and vomiting in the period following surgery. Still, many of the narcotics and anesthetics that we use during surgery have the side effect of nausea and vomiting.
What has been done in the past to prevent this problem?
The physicians and nurses at hospitals have put many post-operative nausea and vomiting – or PONV – prevention methods in place including drugs like Zofran that treat nausea, administration of fluids to keep patients hydrated, changes away from certain types of anesthesia agents, decreasing narcotic doses, and using gradual increases in diet in the day following surgery.
These are organized into protocols, which we use with the aim of keeping the patients as comfortable as possible.
What was different from the normal procedures in this study?
The study presented this week looked at using an infusion of sugar water – or dextrose solution – in the minutes immediately after surgery to see if using the solution prevented PONV.
All of the patients studied were undergoing a gynecologic procedure, and all were given the same type of anesthesia and anti-nausea medicines.
Half of the patients got an IV called lactated ringers solution that did not have the sugar called dextrose added – and half got the lactated ringers solution with the dextrose in it at a 5% solution.
After surgery, the patients were followed for nausea and vomiting.
The patients that received the 5% dextrose lactated ringers solution had much less nausea at 30 minutes after surgery compared to the group that did not receive the sugar solution.
Why did the sugar solution prevent nausea and vomiting?
That is a terrific question, and one that the researchers are not yet able to answer. They plan to do more studies to determine why a sugar solution would help prevent nausea and vomiting. This could lead to new treatments for this problem – both in surgical patients, and in other patients with nausea.
Take-aways for us all
The first lesson is that it is very important to inform your physicians if you have had problems with nausea and vomiting in the past after surgery. There are many techniques that can be used to help prevent the problem in the future.
Futhermore, while this is a fairly small study, the use of Dextrose/sugar solution is very benign in non-diabetic patients – meaning that there are very few, if any, side effects or risks with it. So, if you are a person who has experienced PONV in the past, I would definitely discuss with your anesthesiologist the possibility of being given Dextrose solution right after surgery, should you need another surgery. In most patients, it won’t hurt, and this study shows that it definitely could help you have a much better experience

For more information:

American Society of Anesthesiologists