Reflection Discussion Week 7
This week was a great opportunity to learn about hormones and how they control the human body. Our memory of testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, and the tropic hormones was refreshed. I didn’t know that testosterone promotes the synthesis of erythropoietin, the reason why men have a higher hematocrit (Burchum & Rosenthal, 2020). Also, it was new information that testosterone accelerates epiphyseal closure causing bone growth to cease. So, children on testosterone therapy should be monitored with an X-ray of hands and wrists every 6 months (Burchum & Rosenthal, 2020). It was a great awareness that estrogen can increase coagulation by increasing the clotting factors and it can decrease coagulation by increasing fibrin breakdown (Burchum & Rosenthal., 2020). Also, I learned to teach my patients that estrogen therapy will decrease the effectiveness of warfarin, antidiabetics, and thyroid medications whereas it increases the effectiveness of theophylline, chlordiazepoxide, diazepam, and tricyclic antidepressants due to hepatic metabolism (Burchum & Rosenthal, 2020).
A good review of insulin and antidiabetic medications refreshed our knowledge. A major takeaway from this week was the availability of inhaled human insulin (Afrezza) a mealtime insulin product that can be used in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes (Burchum & Rosenthal, 2020).
Another major takeaway from this week's lesson was patients with sildenafil therapy should avoid grapefruit juice several days before and after taking the medicine. Grapefruit juice takes 48
hours to process in the body and it decreases the metabolism of PDE5 inhibitors causing toxicity (Burchum & Rosenthal, 2020).
