• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Life in the Fast Lane • LITFL • Medical Blog

Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog

  • MENU
  • ECG
  • CCC
  • Top 100
  • PODCASTS
  • JOBS
  • TOX
  • PART ONE
  • INTENSIVE
Home | Toxicology Library | Tox Basics | RRSIDEAD • Antidotes

RRSIDEAD • Antidotes

by Dr Ioana Vlad, last update July 23, 2019

As with any basic and advanced life support it is important to have a systematic approach to managing toxicological emergency presentations. Pioneers in the field developed RRSIDEAD as a mnemonic to remember the key steps in Tox patient assessment and management.

A is for Antidote

  • R – Resuscitation
  • R – Risk Assessment
  • S – Supportive Care
  • I – Investigations
  • D – Decontamination
  • E – Enhanced Elimination
  • A – Antidotes
  • D – Disposition

Antidotes

Antidotes are in-fact rarely used, many are not widely available and most are expensive. It is your risk assessment that will determine whether an antidote is required, and whether its administration outweighs the risks as with any treatment.

LITFL list of most useful antidotes in the emergency and critical care:

  • Naloxone (opiate toxicity)
  • Dextrose (correct hypoglycaemia in insulin or sulphonylureas)
  • Calcium gluconate (arrhythmias with hydrofluoric acid; temporizing measure in calcium channel blockers toxicity)
  • Sodium bicarbonate (severe TCA overdose or sodium channel blockade)
  • Atropine (organophosphate poisoning)

In most cases you have time to assess the requirement for antidotes – Individual antidotes will be discussed in greater depth throughout our tox tute series.


RRSIDEAD Tox Tutes: Antidote

Tox Tute AUDIO
Tox Tute VIDEO

References
  • FAST HUGS in BED Please

LITFL Further Reading
  • Toxicology Basics: Principles of RRSIDEAD in toxicology and toxinology
  • Drugs and Synthetic Toxicants: Assessment and management of poisoning
  • Antidotes: Chemical management for ingested drugs, toxicants and toxins
  • Toxins: Assessment and management of envenoming (Toxinology)
  • Antivenoms: Chemical management of toxins and envenoming.
  • Toxicological Conundrums: Toxicology emergency management in clinical context.
  • Toxicology Resources: Toxicology and toxinology resources on the web

Further Reading
  • Toxicology in a Box – Flashcards
  • Toxicology Handbook 3e
  • Toxicology Secrets 1e
  • Goldfrank’s Toxicologic Emergencies 10e
  • Poisoning and Drug Overdose 7e
  • Oxford Desk Reference – Toxicology

toxicology library antidote 700 1

Toxicology Library

BASICS

Tox Library

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Print

Related

About Dr Ioana Vlad

Ioana is an Emergency Physician and Clinical Toxicologist who thinks that life exists outside Emergency Departments and that there is a wide and wonderful world outside the web.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Vimeo
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Twitter
  • RSS Feed
AD vocortex 2

Recent Posts

Pain scale

Pediatric CXR Cases 007

Name that murmur

Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 300

Eponymous foot injuries

Footer

RSS FEED  LITFL posts by EMAIL or RSS

RSS FEED  LITFL Review by EMAIL or RSS

RSS FEED  FFFF by EMAIL or RSS

#FOAMed Medical Education Resources by LITFL is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at https://litfl.com

  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Twitter

Authors • Blog • Contact • Disclaimer

2018 Launch

  • 22,304,296 visitors

Copyright © 2019 · Powered by vocortex and iSimulate