Hospital and Telephone Triage

91 videos, 4 hours and 28 minutes

Course Content

Diarrhoea and Vomiting

Video 78 of 91
3 min 23 sec
English
English
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Hi. My name is Mark. I'm the triage nurse tonight. Could you just confirm your name and date of birth, please?

Yeah. It's Fred Yates, and it's April 16, 1962.

Excellent. Thank you. Alright, so just while we are talking, if we can do your blood pressure to save time if that's okay?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No problem. No problem.

Okay. With your left arm, yeah?

Yeah. Yeah, it's fine.

Relax your arm. Put your finger into there. We do your temperature in your ear here. Okay. That's great then. So what's been happening to you?

Well, I've just come back off a cruise. And since I've been back off this cruise, I've had deer beef... Well, I've been sick for about a week. I feel I cannot be sick anymore because all I'm bringing up is yellow bile from the stomach. I still wretch. I've got... My ribs hurt but I've still got the diarrhoea. I cannot stop. Every time I drink anything, it comes pouring back through me. I'm in a right mess and I don't know what to do. I just feel absolutely crap and I cannot get off the toilet.

Okay.

If I drink water, I have to sit on the toilet to drink it and I really feel absolutely awful. Headache and I feel sick as a pig. Anything I eat, it either comes out one end or the other.

Alright. And shall we take this off of you? Your pulse is quite fast. And how long did you say this has been going on for?

Well, I've been back in the UK for just over a week but since I came off the cruise liner, just... I think we called in a service station on the way back and I don't know whether I had some dodgy food or whether it was something I picked up on the boat but I've been sick continually. I just cannot be sick anymore. I'm just fed up of being sick.

Okay, and you have a headache and was there anything else?

Well, I've just got no energy. I just feel lethargic and I just don't have any energy. I just feel... I don't feel hungry. I just feel awful.

Alright. Now, you say you've had diarrhoea? Do you have any blood in your diarrhoea?

To be honest with you, not that I've noticed but it's been coming out like water since... For the last few days. It's just been streaming...

Any mucus or jelly?

Yeah, yeah. I've had some of that coming through. It feels like I've passed the whole of my internal organs out through my back passage at the minute.

Alright. So what we need to do is just get you back to A&E. It sounds like you're probably going to be dehydrated. Could you just lift up the skin on your arm like this?

Yeah.

And then let go. Okay. So that looks like your... It's what we call skin tenting when your skin doesn't return.

Yeah.

It can be a sign of dehydration if your skin stays that...

I'm trying to drink but it just goes straight through me again.

Yeah, okay. Let's get you back. I'll get a wheelchair for you and then we'll get you back, get you to see a doctor because one week's vomiting is quite a long time really. So you are going to be quite dehydrated, I think.

Okay.

Alright. Now you haven't had any chest pain?

No, no, no, pain. My ribs hurt but that's just from the amount of vomiting I've done. I don't feel anything apart from I've just wretched my stomach, my abdominal muscles and my chest muscles from being sick.

Okay, alright. We'll get this wheelchair and we'll get you around there. Okay?

Okay. Thank you.