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?

They don't get switched off. If someone is being cremated they have to be removed (because they can explode). If they're being buried they just keep on ticking away until the battery wears out (but the heart doesn't respond to it anymore because of the physiological disturbance caused by the final illness/injury).

After a hysterectomy (with ovaries left intact), they can go a-wandering.
I was very unwell after mine (9 different courses / types of antibiotics over seven weeks), before eventually being sent for a scan which revealed a mass which was either a resolving abscess or internal bleed. My left ovary was nowhere to be seen. The sonographer said it could be hiding in amongst folds of bowel.

@Greybeardy can I ask at what stage is the pacemaker removed? If someone died, say in a hospice due to a non heart related illness, would they have to go back to hospital to have it removed if being cremated?

Thank you @MrsMarzetti I am currently cancer free 🙏

Yep

You can't turn them off, and a nurse wouldn't have anything to do with it.

Some of the original ones you could switch off but it's a safety thing. They are programmed using a magnet. Well there is a programmer as well but that sends magnetic pulses to the pacemaker.

Eventually the battery will die, if the deceased is being cremated then the pacemaker has to be removed first.

In the 1980s the Virgin Megastore security, what ever they are called, you walk through them, reprogrammed a macemaker.

Since then they have a default that they will pace at 'magnet rate' if there is a strong magnetic field.

That runny eyes is a symptom of dry eyes. Would have been the last thing I considered until the optician if I had any problems with my eyes and I told her as soon as I went outside, even in the slightest breeze, my eyes would run. She recommended trying eye drops and voila, after a week or so, no more streaming. I’m sure lots of people know this but I’d never had twigged.

sashh. I meant when you die your heart stops and the pacemaker is there to stop that happening

Which is presumably one of the reasons I was advised to have my ovaries out at the sane time.

A pacemaker regulates the electrical activity that controls the rhythm of your heartbeat. So if you’re dead and there’s no electrical activity, the pacemaker does nothing.

Not as your heart stops, it tries to do its work as you die

Well yes, but to no avail.

Because you’re dying…

Yes, but the pacemaker do it’s stuff that it’s supposed to do for a tiny amount of time

A pacemaker just regulates the heartbeat. It doesn't delay death. It doesn't prevent the heart from stopping nor does it try to restart it. It's just there keeping the beat regular like it always did.

Think you might be confusing pacemakers with internal defibrillators. An ICD does need to be deactivated when death is expected or it just keeps delivering shocks (if the arrest rhythm is a shockable one) and that is unpleasant. A pacemaker continues to attempt to pace the heart but the heart just doesn’t respond to it (probably because the blood becomes acidic when people are critically ill and the salts in the blood become pretty wonky too and heart muscle doesn’t like that).

its usually done by the funeral directors I believe.

Just to add to this, the pacemaker itself is no where near your heart, there are wires that go from the pacemaker into the heart chambers.

The pacemaker is usually located in the upper chest (in babies they put them in the abdomen) think about where a chest pocket is on a jacket.

The incision is small, about 2-3cm. When the cardiologist implants it they make a pocket in the flesh so the pacemaker is very near the surface.

The electrodes are connected tot he pacemaker with tiny screws that can be undone with a special screwdriver.

@LoisPrice

Pacemakers don't pace all the time, they detect whether your heart is beating at an appropriate rate and if it is too slow it will, sort of, give an electrical signal to initiate a contraction.

An ICD, as @Greybeardy states is a different thing, it IS used to stop the heart fibrillating.

Now these can be programmed 'off'. Again with a programmer and a magnet.

If an ICD is not working correctly and giving shocks when it shouldn't you can temporarily turn it off with a 'blue doughnut' magnet until the person can get to a hospital.

https://mrp.io/magnet-pacemaker-metronic-blue-donut-4-package-for-use-with-difibrillator.html

I work as HCSW in the community and am in my final year of training, even in a persons own home we open the window once they have passed before carrying out last offices.

As for the poster who thinks it’s a waste of time and money passing on these rituals, you probably think it’s a waste of time and money involving people in their own care and taking into account what they want as an individual as well. Perhaps we should go back to the ‘good old days’ of doing as the doctor said because they knew best

But it’s your own superstition. I don’t see why you think it’s an aspect of care for the deceased. It’s an entirely separate issue to good practice, gentleness and respect for the person’s body after death.

We live in a time of nursing and healthcare being aimed at a biopsychosocial model, no point treating the Illness if you’re not looking at other aspects of the persons life.

@Plentiful and that’s fair enough everyone is entitled to their own views on things but the vast majority of my families have been very grateful for the small things we have done when a loved one dies

@Greybeardy thank you - I had visions of people needing to go back into an operating theatre!

Fascinating thread OP. Thank you @HaveYouHeardOfARoadAtlas and @FelicityBeedle brought tears to my eyes.

On the contrary - everything about it speaks of respect and gentleness. I'm sorry you can't see that.