Would you ever need to use Atropine instead of Epinephrine to speed up the heart?

Answer 1

Yes, Atropine is usually your FIRST line of defense in speeding up the heart rate. Atropine blocks the parasympathetic stimulus to the SA node. Epi is not intended to speed up the heart, it's to increase irritability so that you can have a rhythm to convert in V. fib. Increased heart rate is a side effect

Answer 2

Both speed up the heart. But, in the field, paramedics use atropine to speed up a heartbeat that is less than 60bpm and the patient is sypmtomatic (if they are dizzy, weak, have chest pain and/or shortness of breath).
Epinephrine is mostly used to reverse severe allergic reations and is also given for cardiac arrest. Actually, Epi and Atropine work well together for cardiac arrest.

Answer 3

One common use of atropine is to speed up the heart.

By contrast, epinephrine is used for cardiac arrest, severe (life-threatening) asthma or allergic reaction, or (uncommonly) to raise the blood pressure of critically ill patients. As others have noted, it has the side effect of speeding up the heart but isn't used for this purpose.

Answer 4

Yes, depends on when you are using the atropine or epi.
ex: I perform chemical (dobutamine) cardiac stress testing...if i cant get the pt's heat rate to there targer heart rate....then we would give atropine.
Epi is mostly given for emergency cases.

Answer 5

atropine is a muscarinic inhibitor and epinephrine is alhpa agonist .so they are quite different and no we will not use atropine insttead of epinephrine

Answer 6

yes....atropine is given if the person has a pulse, but the heart rate is slow, less than 60......epi is given if the person is pulseless.

Answer 7

yes. before it.