management
Last reviewed 01/2018
Seek specialist advice:
Therapy aims to treat the underlying condition:
- causal drugs must be stopped
- efforts should be made to accelerate the excretion of any offending drug or poison
An acidosis of < 7 has a negative inotropic effect on the heart and must be carefully corrected by slow bicarbonate infusion:
- ventilation must be maintained to ensure that the carbon dioxide produced is blown off
Other therapy includes:
- methylene blue as a buffer
- stimulation of pyruvate dehydrogenase by dichloroacetate infusion
- 100 mg thiamine twice daily corrects lactic acidosis caused by thiamine deficiency