Medical things you didn’t know?

[Emptychairdoasolo]

Just watching a medical drama and wondered what happens if you die on the operating table? Do they just sew you back up without repairing anything inside?

but also had me thinking what other medical things didn’t you know until you maybe experienced them or learned?

Botulinum toxin is one of the most poisonous substances known on earth. It’s the toxin involved in botulism which used to kill 50% of people that contracted it. 1g of pure botulinum toxin could kill 1 million people if aerosolised.

Botulinum toxin is Botox. It’s obviously v v small quantities but the fact that something so deadly can be repurposed for cosmetic and other medical uses amazes me. I wouldn’t be v keen on having it though.

Ibuprofen can mend a hole in the heart (in babies)

In Ireland anyway, a significant number of hospitals were established, and in some cases continue to be owned, by catholic religious orders.

The Bon Secours for example is an order of trained nurses and midwives and historically catholicism, incl. catholic death rites, were practiced as much as medicine in their hospitals. I suppose for the same reason nurses were known as 'Sisters' - a transfer of the religious title to secular nurses working alongside the order.

That "a sense of impending doom" is a recognised symptom, particularly for things like cardiac arrest, and can be a side effect of some drugs.

I had Wolff-Parkinson White Syndrome, which is a congenital thing where the electrical pathway of your heart can go wrong - effectively it produces a bit of a short circuit and you get episodes of tachycardia. I'd be sitting quietly with a pulse of 200. My attacks were often prompted by hiccups - again that vagus nerve being tricky. Anyway, when it was diagnosed when I was about 8 or 9 years old I'd then get taken to A&E when I had an episode and I'd be given adenosine. That is known to produce as a side effect a sense of impending doom; and I can vouch that when it's being injected you feel like you're dying. It's like jamming a handbrake on when you're doing 80mph on the motorway. My heart felt like it jammed to a halt, stopped and stuttered for a few seconds, then would start again in a regular rhythm. I imagine it's what the start of cardiac arrest feels like and hope not to experience it again.

I had ablation when I was 11 and it's sorted now thankfully.

Wow, I have NEVER come across that and I've worked at (counts) 6 hospitals.

The thing about botulinum is it is not metabolised. In other words it never leaves your body. It has been found in brain, nerves etc.

Personally speaking if you need it for medical reasons fine (in dentistry we use it for severe jaw clenching) but to put a substance every few months into your body ,for cosmetic reasons , which will just build up ad infinitum with unknown consequences does not seem prudent.

Thank you.

That is so kind and so reassuring.

Your pulse is your heart beating so this is nonsense. And most people lose consciousness before they die, unless they die from sudden impact.

I never realised it was possible for labour to cause a pulmonary edema.

The recently deceased don't suddenly start stinking more than they did before. Decay is not a sudden event. How about 'would you like us to open a window?'

Further to above comment, my husband was awake having teeth out and the very petite dentist did put her knee on his chest to take out a particularly tricky molar. He had the bruises to prove it afterwards!

Agree. It's horrible. And always have sedation for a colonoscopy because until they do it, you don't know if you have kinks in your colon and it's horrible, too.

Ex nurse here. I can definitely remember some of the older nurses when I was a student opening the window to let the soul leave - I trained in a large teaching hospital with many Irish nurse so maybe it is a catholic thing? I can't remember if it was before or after laying out the body but I do recall laying out bodies with a staff nurse when I was a student and staff talking to the body as if they were still alive (which 19 year old me found a bit weird).

To all the posters saying bodies don't smell immediately after death, I can guarantee from having laid out bodies that they don't smell from decay because it's too soon, but dead bodies do have a habit of 'leaking' body fluids as all the muscles relax (and more so as they are moved about during the process of being laid out) and I can assure you that leaking body fluids (from which ever cavity) definitely do smell and depending on what the patient doe from there can be a surprising amount.

Dead bodies also groan sometimes as you move them when the air expels from the lungs.

This reminds me of this

a pacemaker continues to do its job after death, not sure what the nurse does to turn it off?

@GregoryFluff that's really nicely put, thanks for taking the time to respond in such a kind way. One for me to think about a bit more maybe.

I think this is the effects of testosterone during a man's lifetime. Bigger ears, hands and also why men get prostate problems as they age.

No, we do it to let the soul out. Old wives tale but I still do it to make sure just in case it's true. There really isn't a smell. They aren't a rotting corpse.

Not medical but as a baby trainee police officer I was taught by my tutor to do the same window opening ritual and also to talk to the person who has died while you're checking them over. "I'm just going to lift this arm Maisie, and check your back then I'll lie you down again" etc. It's about dignity in death and respect both for the person who has died and their loved ones.

Police are called to sudden deaths where a coroners report will be needed so I've been to a lot of very distressed families over the years. One adult son tried to punch me as he misunderstood why I was there. Obviously I didn't do anything about that, just let him grieve with his sister.

It can take a lot of explaining that the police aren't there because the family are suspected of doing anything untoward - I used to explain we were there to help through this tough time by organising the next steps for the family and to make pots of tea.

I think my dh’s dentist did do that!!!

He was born at home so no opportunity for swapping!

"transferred to ward 13" it means they have been taken to the morgue.

Ive only ever heard the more referred to a Rose Cottage

I learned how they do skin grafts recently due to a procedure I had.
They remove a strip of your skin using a en electric razor shaped like a y-shape potato peeler
They then run the strip of skin through a lattice machine to make it bigger! Fascinating and gross.

That your lease is replaced during a cataract op! Freaked me out - was my friend having one!!

*lense

You don't have any muscles in your fingers - they are like marionettes being controlled by muscles in the palm 🖐learned from my years working in hand trauma!