Why is glucose given after paracetomol overdose?

Question

He did it yesterday afternoon,he had bloods done and they would not give us the results.they just started him on the drip and said he will need treatment til tomorrow morning.does this mean his blood test was abnormal?

Answer 1

Without those results, it would be hard to give you a definite answer. However, acetaminophen overdose has a huge range of hepatic (liver) and metabolic effects. Metabolic rates can be 20-25% higher than baseline, which means that the patient is using a lot of energy.

It's quite possible that they ran a full battery of blood tests and noticed that the patient's blood glucose was low. Perhaps, the doctors just wanted to supplement it, until the patient stabilized. Or, knowing that most acetaminophen overdoses have similar characteristics, the glucose could just be part of a standardized protocol.