What happens when you have no stomach?

[loubielou31]

Girls loses stomach after drinking cocktail conataining liquid nitrogen
What will happen now? How do you eat if you've got no stomach?

I wondered this too. I feel so sad for the poor girl, just awful.

I wondered this. I wonder if they can create one somehow using her intestines

yikes.

I also wondered about this. Shriiiiiek, that would be an idea, but I would be interested to see how the doctors got the new organ to function as a stomach, ie produce gastric acids and break down the food further. I suppose there are meds that could be taken to aid digestion... All in all, I'm horrified for this poor girl. She's got a long recovery ahead of her. :(

They can make a small pouch, but she'll only ever be able to eat very small amounts at a time and will have issues digesting and absorbing nutrients

It's just awful. Her 18th birthday, and her life changed forever.

What I don't really understand is why this is the first (well I assume it is the first?) case of it going very wrong and almost being fatal. It was said on This Morning that this drink has been used in nightclubs for 6 years.

My mother had her stomach removed a couple of years ago. She still eats! She has to have a lot smaller meals and eat more often. The odd food she is told to avoid - sweetcorn being one. And she has to have vitamin B12 injections. She also has drinks on prescription that are very high calorie as she is very slim. She has been told to eat every couple of hours. She also takes codeine tablets when needed if she needs to slow down the food going through her body!

Some news reports have stated that they had to remove 'a small section of the stomach' so i'm not sure whether the reported whole stomach is accurate.

Shocking though and life changing for the poor girl in any case.

Utterly shocking. Will direct the (teenage) DC to the article

You can live quite easily without a stomach. My mother also take multi-vitamins, and her prescription drinks contain vitamins.

There are ways of feeding people who can't tolerate food into their stomachs so I assume they could be used if all else fails but it will mean she'll need to be fed by a tube into her small intestine or via a line into a vein so she would never be able to eat food again.

Another report said that a chef was trying to imitate some of Heston Blumenthal's techniques using liquid nitrogen. One of his hands was blown off and the other had to be amputated.

I'm glad that it is possible to eat without a stomach like many of you have said. I wondered whether it would be like having a major gastric band type operation which if you're already slim must mean you'd have to be careful to eat enough calories or if you'd have to be sort of tube fed. It sounds like the former. It's a bit frightening really. I'm glad she's okay now.

I took it to mean she'd had either an ileostomy or colostomy bag fitted (ex-H has had most of his stomach removed and a bag fitted due to Crohn's Disease)

ileostomy or colostomy bag is for when part of the colon is removed - not stomach. Your stomach is basically a food store. You can live without it and lead a normal life - apart from having to eat little and often, have vitamin B12 injections, multivitamins and ensure calories are kept up.

Just watching the news report on this and it is horrific that this practise of serving cocktails is legal. Hope the poor girl makes a speedy recovery

i think that the liquid nitrogen is supposed to evaporate before you drink the cocktail

MrsBugsy, that is correct. From what I have read, liquid nitrogen can be used for some interesting things in restaurants by someone who is trained and knows how to handle the stuff (instant ice cream at your table, anyone?). However, I will always remember being about 10 years old, watching a guy freeze stuff with nitrogen. He dipped a rose into a pot of it and dropped the rose, which shattered like glass. The same with a blown-up balloon. We were told that it would do the same to fingers/hands. :o I've never fancied going near the stuff since.

That was meant to be a shocked face, not a grin!