Epidural diet regimen.

Continuous quality improvement presents many avenues for change. We decided to evaluate the number of complaints of nausea and vomiting from patients receiving preservative-free (PF) epidural morphine reinjections. A systematic study of this problem involved a survey of all patients receiving epidural pain management. Staff from the Department of Anesthesia and pain management nurses monitored the results, and after 2 months recommendations were made to change the diet of these patients for the first 24-hour postoperative period. Only those patients who received PF epidural morphine reinjections had problems with nausea and vomiting. Therefore, only these patients were started on the epidural diet regimen. After several modifications of the diet, we found that there were 80% less complaints of nausea and vomiting in patients adhering to this diet plan while receiving PF epidural morphine.