Publications by authors named "Joseph R Blunck"

Background: Nimodipine improves outcomes following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) and current guidelines suggest that patients with aSAH receive nimodipine for 21 days. Patients with no difficulty swallowing will swallow the whole capsules or tablets; otherwise, nimodipine liquid must be drawn from capsules, tablets need to be crushed, or the commercially available liquid product be used to facilitate administration through an enteral feeding tube (FT). It is not clear whether these techniques are equivalent.

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Objective: Cerebral salt wasting is a condition that can occur in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and is characterized by excessive natriuresis, resulting in hyponatremia and hypovolemia. Fludrocortisone is a mineralocorticoid that facilitates retention of sodium and water. Guideline recommendations are weak regarding fludrocortisone use in this patient population due to mixed clinical effectiveness in prior studies.

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Background: A ketogenic diet (KD) may have a role in treating patients in super-refractory status epilepticus (SRSE). Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors have a risk of ketoacidosis that could facilitate induction of KD.

Case Summary: A 42-year-old with a history of drug resistant epilepsy developed SRSE requiring several pharmacological interventions during her hospital course including the initiation of KD that failed.

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Background: Purple glove syndrome (PGS) is a poorly understood severe adverse drug reaction that is typically associated with intravenous phenytoin administration. Although fosphenytoin is thought to circumvent this risk of PGS, we reveal a rare case of PGS in a patient treated with fosphenytoin therapy.

Case Summary: A 71-year-old male with history of epilepsy was admitted for seizures and traumatic brain injury and intravenous fosphenytoin and levetiracetam were initiated.

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