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
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.
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 it surgically for a variety of reasons. It’s fairly common.
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
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?
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.
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.
Yeah, but if you get the right beans type, it can form a new kidney and then you’ll have two kidneys again after the transplant. If you get it wrong, then there’s a chance of rejection, though. So most doctors don’t use beans.
It’s more that there’s a higher risk of complications if they remove the old kidneys. However, they do start taking them out if you’ve had more than two transplants.
kidney.org
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