to ask your thoughts on organ denation

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I have been thinking alot recently about organ donation after watching a programme about it.

I have really mixed feelings about it,

Whats your views on donating your own or your DC organs after death?

I'm very keen on my organs being donated after I die - I regularly remind my family so they know my wishes! I'll be dead so I'll have no use for them, will I?

I went to school with a lad who contracted a virus that attacked his heart muscle, aged 15. His parents were basically told that he would be unlikely to live more than a few days/weeks unless he got a transplant, but it was unlikely they'd get a donor in time. Miraculously, a suitable heart was available within a few days so he had the transplant. He's now in his mid 40s, still going strong and has 3 children that wouldn't exist if he'd not got that heart.

My sister's childhood best friend had multiple holes in her heart at birth and was told she wouldn't survive more than a year at best. Due to a transplant, she got 14 years of happy life. Her heart failed and she needed another transplant, but no suitable heart became free before she died, sadly.

My colleague has a donor kidney - she may well still be here without it, but she'd be on dialysis for many hours each week and slowly deteriorating all the time. She had two kids after she got the new kidney - again, they wouldn't exist otherwise.

I strongly believe the system should be opt out, rather than the current system. It annoys me that my relatives could refuse to donate my organs and nothing can be done about this. If you'd accept a donor organ to keep you alive, you should be willing to donate what you don't need anymore after your death, surely?

Surely the machines aren’t able to go everything to keep her body alive though. I don’t understand it well enough but Icantt imagine the whole brain could be completely dead. A completely dead brain would surely lead to instant death so how do they manage to utilise organs from car accident victims? There is a lot of unknown really with organ donation. I wish they would actually be completely honest about which parts of the brain are still functioning.

@headstone I understand that but there is a lot of information out there which might reassure you. It's normal for you to have a lot of questions but you shouldn't assume that because you don't know the answers, answers aren't available.

Here is a place you could start, if you want to know more: www.nhs.uk/conditions/brain-death/

A ventilator takes oxygen to the organs, otherwise the organs die and are unfit for transplant.
Instant death usually means sudden brain death. The body dies in stages after the brain has died. After brain death there is no awareness of pain, no consciousness. You cant think, or dream. You cant feel anything and you can't suffer.
They aren't hiding anything, no parts of the brain are functioning after brain death.

I've worked (along time ago) on a children's intensive care unit and has cared for patients who have gone on to donate their organs. I am in awe of the families that are brave enough to choose to do it. I hope that I would be strong enough to do so myself. However, I also think that the process of donation, the fact that the organs are removed whilst the patient is brain dead; to the families, their loved one is still pink and breathing (on a ventilator) so 'technically' appears to still be alive, and I do think it must be so, so, incredibly hard to let someone wheel them off to theatre to remove parts of them whilst they are still being kept going by machines. I am fully in favour of organ donation, and anyone is very welcome to any part of me that is of any use when I die. But, I don't think its necessarily fair to judge people that couldn't put themselves through a pretty macabre situation when they are already going through something terrible.

@headstone, your brain has various sections (lobes) that carry out different functions. The brain stem is at the base of the brain and consists of the medulla oblongata, the midbrain (mesencephalon) and the pons. The medulla oblongata helps regulate breathing, heart and blood vessel function, digestion, sneezing, and swallowing. The midbrain (mesencephalon) controls motor movement, particularly movements of the eye, and auditory and visual processing. The pons forebrain to the cerebellum, along with nuclei that deal primarily with sleep, respiration, swallowing, bladder control, hearing, equilibrium, taste, eye movement, facial expressions, facial sensation, and posture.

So, when the tests are done that check all of the nerves that control all of these functions, and they all fail, it tells the doctors that there is no function in the any of those three areas of the brain stem which is vital to the preservation of life.

The reason the heart still beats for a time is that the heart contains cells that are myogenic - they can incite their own heart beat within the cell to create a contraction of the heart - they don't need a message from the brain to get the heart beating.

A completely dead brain would surely lead to instant death so how do they manage to utilise organs from car accident victims?

Effective maintenance of respiration via an advanced airway and good bagging technique. The heart is able to beat independently without signals from the brain for prolonged periods of time due to the cardiac cells design.

looked at rats whose hearts had stopped, and were medically declared dead (definition requires the heart to have died and no longer be pumping blood to the brain)

Human death is measured by brain stem death, not heart death. If the same standards had been applied the rats would have been classed as alive.

Whilst I am alive, I’m prepared to donate anything feasible. So ask while I live not after death. Don’t worry I won’t accept anyone else organs if they were obtained after death. But I don’t know if they will give that information, so will only accept donations made by a person I known off. So I guess my death will just have to come forward. Everybody dies, all this is delaying the inevitable.

I want my body intact and buried, don’t even want a post-mortem.

You are still dead beyond being able to be brought back but the cells could still be active. Im not saying this is a definite but have read enough to make me question it.

When you are brain stem dead you have
-no hearing
-no vision
-no pain reflex
-no breathing reflex
-no gag reflex
-no cough reflex

It doesnt matter if the odd cell is still alive. The messages pass through the brain stem, which is dead.

I want my body intact and buried, don’t even want a post-mortem
You may not have any choice in the matter over a post-mortem.

so somebody does have the balls to say ' i wont donate, and there fore I am prepared to die rather than accept a donation'. That I respect, good for you.

My grandad received two kidneys from donors. My dad was a live kidney donor for my uncle (whose donated kidney is still go strong 20 years later). My family all know that my wish is for my organs to be donated upon my death, if possible. I’ll have no further use of them but they may buy someone else years quality time with their loved ones.

Organs, tissue, whatever they need from me!

Would you accept an organ if you needed one? If the answer is yes, why wouldn’t you donate your own?

Have a look at some videos of people who have made the decision to donate their loved one’s organs meeting the recipients, it’s wonderful. So touching to see a parent whose child has died hearing their heart beating strong in someone else’s chest.

Even when the brain stem is dead and you are officially declared 'dead' some studies believe you could be conscious for a while and even hear your own death being announced.

No, that is not what those studies are saying. Those studies were on rats whose hearts had stopped beating rather than being certified brain dead. Brain and circulatory death (your heart stopping) are separate processes. Your heart can stop but your brain doesn't die immediately - this is why it is (sometimes) possible to resuscitate people whose hearts have stopped. So yes there may be brain activity after the heart has stopped beating, however the lack of oxygen to your brain will mean that any form of consciousness is lost extremely quickly.

With brain death your heart stops beating after your brain has died, so there is no possibility of having any conscious knowledge at all because, by definition, your brain is dead.

When organ donation takes place after the heart has stopped beating there is always a 5 minute delay between the heart stopping and death being confirmed. At this point their brain will have also died from lack of oxygen, so again there is absolutely no chance that they can feel or hear anything.

Have a look at some videos of people who have made the decision to donate their loved one’s organs meeting the recipients, it’s wonderful. So touching to see a parent whose child has died hearing their heart beating strong in someone else’s chest.

I'm not sure things like this are helpful to a lot of people.

Honestly, I didn't want to know who my son's organs went to, I really don't feel like it would bring me comfort. On a selfish level I feel I would possibly resent the people they went to or maybe become too attached to them. I know vague details, how many people, and the approximate ages, but I really feel nothing, those organs aren't my son's. My son died. Others lived and that's great for their families but I'm still in the same shitty place

All these videos of people meeting up etc are an added pressure in itself I feel.

It really is different for everyone.

My son will need a double lung transplant to save his life in the coming years. Everything of mine can be donated and I'm horrified that there are people that don't consent. Cold logic says that when you're dead, you're dead, you don't think or feel, save some lives with your death, it's recycling at it's finest.

Could I say “thank you” and those of you who have decided to donate your body to a medical school / science.

I’m ashamed to say I never thought about this until my DD became a medical student. The university where she studies have a special facility for preserving the bodies so that they are much more lifelike, which is much better for the students to learn about anatomy.

The bodies are treated with great respect and a small group of students work with the same person, whose first name they know, all year. Last week they all attended the funeral service for their donors, along with relatives.

The students know that it’s such a great privilege for them to learn in this way . They are told that their donors are the “ silent teachers”. Each body is different in the same way each living patient is different, so it’s much better than learning from a computer model, as they do in some medical schools.

I feel very emotional when I think of this person who gave such a gift to help my daughter learn to be a doctor. I hope she will pay this back by treating her future patients with care and compassion.

There is nothing to think about. They can take whatever they want once I'm gone.

@boopsy seriously??

What about people who have been declared dead and woken up in a morgue or during an autopsy? Some of these people made a recovery, if they had their organs taken out nobody would ever have known they were not really dead. I am aware this is rare but it still happens even today

Such people would not have been declared brain dead for the purposes of donation.