• Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    If I have any take-aways from nursing school, it’s that kidneys are fucking bullies. Your kidneys will demand blood even if it means starving your brain; kidneys above all else. Selfish bastards

  • frank@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Not really related, but of a similar vein:

    A buddy of mine is an ER surgeon in a rough city in the US. Says that they usually don’t take out bullets from people, just leave them unless they’re causing a problem specifically. It blows my mind that the human body is just fine with it

    • baldingpudenda@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The body:
      the hell is this?

      Checks it out

      Well I’m not dealing with it. I’m just gonna mark/wall it off.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Would they not be able to go through metal detectors or get MRIs? And is lead poisoning not an issue? Maybe getting it out is more risky, but it seems like there’d be downsides.

      • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Iirc lead poisoning isn’t much of an issue because your body encapsulates it, preventing the body from absorbing it.

        Metal detectors are a non issue. My dad has several pieces of metal in his spine from surgeries. He occasionally sets off metal detectors, but it’s never been a huge issue with security. It’s more common than you think. People have metal plates, screws and general hardware put in surgically for a variety of reasons. It’s fairly common.

      • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Probably depends on the round as well. NATO rounds are fully jacketed so the copper would have to dissolve before the lead was exposed to the body. For a hollow point or otherwise damaged round, then I think yes lead would be exposed to the body. No clue about danger of that though

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          You got me thinking. Cheap, non-hollow point rounds of all sorts are jacketed. I buy the crappiest ammo I can find and the .22s are the only rounds with exposed lead. And some of those are copper clad.

          Copper being more expensive than lead, why is that? Smoother feeding, don’t get dented up, something like that?

          • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Ooh look up dum dum rounds, there was a YouTube video I watched recently, but if you like firearms it’s a fun watch.

            So iirc, lead is so soft that when we started using auto feeding the lead deformed and you would fail to load a round. Copper is used because it is softer than the steel barrel so the rifling will grab onto the bullet, but hard enough not to deform with normal use and in the barrel.

            But then you find out that they are bad at killing humans.

    • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz
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      3 months ago

      My grandfather lived with a bullet in his foot for the majority of his life. When he passed he was cremated and my mom asked if she could keep the bullet, but apparently nothing makes it out of the cremation process. Whatever metal you have inside you is turned to ash as well.

      • StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Fun fact: cremation doesn’t completely burn up the human body. A certain amount of solid bone fragments remain, which are ground up. This almost entirely forms the “ashes”.

        Assuming the bullet was lead (which melts at about a third of cremation fire temperatures), it likely ended up as little blobs and was then ground up. Your mother still has the bullet, it’s just in powder form now.

        • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          At high temperatures I believe iron will start to oxidize and “burn up”, will lead not do something similar?

            • shalafi@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Made me look since I melt and pour lead doodads for fun.

              Boiling point of lead: 1749C (Iron for comparison 2862C.)

              Cremation (top of the range I found): 871

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Just got a .177 pellet cut out of my hand while having another procedure. Took years until I noticed it bothering me.

      Got a femur full of deck screws and titanium plates, took 10-years for the pain to 100% wear off, but all that might as well not be there for all I can feel.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Yup, it blew my mind when I first learned about it.

    Back in high school, I did a kind of medical jobs class that supposedly prepped us for entry into medical training, to help decide if or was right for us, and which fields we might go into. There was more than that, but that was the basic idea.

    The last year of the class was going out and playing tag-along on various jobs. Nursing, radiology, pathology, dentistry, whatever.

    One of the things we got to go to was a transplant unit. Finding out that kidneys (usually) stay in was kinda crazy because the obvious thing is that they’re diseased, maybe dying, so why would you leave them in, wouldn’t that cause trouble down the road?

    Blew all our little minds lol

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Afaik it’s a situation where the less things you have to do the better, even if the only benifit is shortening the length of surgery by minute or more, it’s probably saving lives leaving it in as a protocol.

      • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Pretty much, that’s the explanation given back then.

        Iirc it was phrased more that the risks of complications from removing the less healthy ones and all the blood supply issues that go with that complicat e the surgery in both time and possible unwanted outcomes. So damn near exactly what you said :)

        There’s times it has to be done, but to the best of my knowledge, the majority of cases, the kidneys aren’t doing anything bad, they’re just not working right.

  • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    They dont explain it though.

    I presume the kidneys dies out on its own and the cells get recycled by the body?

  • DjMeas@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Transplant patient here! Started with my 2 and then got 2 more added in my mid 30s. Later they took 1 of the transplanted ones out because it was clotting.

    Score so far:

    • 2 original kidneys that have basically been so damaged that they provide no filtering.
    • 1 working transplant that is doing all the work and being a champ!
    • Ironfacebuster@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Do you think you’ll get a real life achievement if you can collect them all?

      Kidneymon is what I’m calling this concept

      • DjMeas@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        🎵I want to beat dialysis

        But one kidney’s not enough

        Forget about the waitlist

        And collect them just because 🎵

        Kidneymon!

    • bastion@feddit.nl
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      3 months ago

      Hold a sec while I insert this hyperactive thyroid. …just one more transplant…

  • VelvetStorm@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The operation to place a new kidney takes about 3-4 hours. The donated kidney is placed into your lower abdomen (belly area), where it’s easiest to connect it to your important blood vessels and bladder. You may be surprised to learn that your own kidneys generally aren’t taken out when you get a transplant. The surgeon leaves them where they are unless there is a medical reason to remove them

    Fucking wild.