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Anal oxygen administration may save lives

economist.com

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Re: Anal oxygen administration may save lives

#61

Post by kragen »

mikecsh wrote: post #56
creshal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*Fuck* ventilators. They damage the patient's lungs, and laying tubes into the trachea requires traumatic surgery and carries significant secondary infection risk. ECMO – for patients with too destroyed lungs – is even worse, massive infection risk due to exposing vital arteries and veins, and it destroys your blood cells, requiring constant topping up with fresh blood transfusions. This has the potential to be less…

What a bizarre comment. Every patient who goes under general anaesthesia for surgery (life saving or otherwise) is ventilated and usually without issue. “Laying tubes into the trachea” I presume refers to tracheostomy. Let’s be realistic here - if you are requiring a tracheostomy and ventilator, or ECMO the you are severely unwell. A blood transfusion, or small risk of infection is the least of your worries at that p…

I think there are a significant number of general anesthesia patients who don't get intubated, but the big issue is that being intubated for four hours is very different from being intubated for two weeks, which is very likely to kill you. (And, yes, not breathing will also kill you. But intubation was working so badly that hospitals developed proning protocols for covid patients as a less fatal alternative which was less likely to kill them.)

If squirting oxygenated perfluorodecane up your ass for two weeks can keep you alive more often than proning or intubation, that'd be a great improvement. Could save a lot of lives. Buy Dow Chemical stonks.

Re: Anal oxygen administration may save lives

#62

Post by Garvey »

levidos wrote: post #12
isatty wrote: post #4

I wish paywalled articles were banned from HN. Just because I can bypass it does not mean it’s worth the effort.

Is there a tool to bypass paywalls?

Pasting the article URL into the search over at archive.is seems to work for a lot of them

Re: Anal oxygen administration may save lives

#65

Post by mikecsh »

creshal wrote: post #59
mikecsh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bizarre comment. Every patient who goes under general anaesthesia for surgery (life saving or otherwise) is ventilated and usually without issue. “Laying tubes into the trachea” I presume refers to tracheostomy. Let’s be realistic here - if you are requiring a tracheostomy and ventilator, or ECMO the you are severely unwell. A blood transfusion, or small risk of infection is the least of your worries at that p…

> Let’s be realistic here - if you are requiring a tracheostomy and ventilator, or ECMO the you are severely unwell. Obviously. So why use these invasive procedures if a less invasive one could do the job with less risk? > A blood transfusion, or small risk of infection is the least of your worries at that point. Did you come straight from the 19th century or something? Hospital acquired infections kill hundreds of t…

Angry much? Calm yourself down.

Clearly if anal oxygen proves to be safer and as effective then it will be adopted. No one is disputing that.

My comment was regarding your expletive laden derision of devices which save hundreds of thousands of lives.

And you seem to have missed the point. I did. It say hospital acquired infections are not prevalent or problematic. My point was that every decision in medicine s based on risk and benefit. If you need ECMO you will almost certainly die without it. If you have ECMO there is a compratively small risk of infection that may kill you.

And yes thanks, I did read the article. I’m also a doctor and have spent many months working in ITU, anaesthesia, and operating theatres, and managing acutely unwell COVID-19 patients.

Let us all be glad you’re not making any treatment decisions.

Re: Anal oxygen administration may save lives

#66

Post by jgalt212 »

dtech wrote: post #60
TheManInThePub wrote: post #9

I confess my first thought was mixing oxygen in a methane environment inside the body isn't ideal. And this isn't a joke..... for example, cyclopropane is an excellent anaesthetic gas but no longer used due to the explosion risk. I believe (?) there was a case of a patients throat catching fire on the operating table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhalational_anesthetic#Gases

I don't think the trace amounts of methane humans produce is enough to be any real danger...

some frat boys beg to differ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_lighting

Re: Anal oxygen administration may save lives

#67

Post by ljm »

raducu wrote: post #27
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #6

I believe the liquid they are mentioning was featured in the movie The Abyss. It is painful for humans to breathe the liquid. But apparently giving you an enema with it works! Amazing.

Makes me chuckle thinking of the next movie about future divers having tubes going into the rectum, not the mouth.

Two trapped divers only have one rebreather left between the two of them. The conscious diver clenches his butt as he removes the tube and plugs it into his partner's ass for a few seconds.

I'm getting Requiem for a Dream vibes from this.

Re: Anal oxygen administration may save lives

#68

Post by [deleted] »

clort wrote: post #13

The rectum is an interesting place. You can apparently also absorb water there, if you are severely dehydrated and unable to hold anything down (eg seasick). All you need, the saying goes, is a funnel and a friend.. full disclosure: I've not tried that!

[deleted]

Re: Anal oxygen administration may save lives

#69

Post by stevula »

ddxxdd wrote: post #44
clort wrote: post #13

The rectum is an interesting place. You can apparently also absorb water there, if you are severely dehydrated and unable to hold anything down (eg seasick). All you need, the saying goes, is a funnel and a friend.. full disclosure: I've not tried that!

I have heard, from some corny Discovery Channel survival show, that the bottom can filter out salt from the water. So if you're surrounded by ocean with no fresh water, the bottom is the place to go.

Wouldn’t the water seek isotonic equilibrium by moving to the side of the membrane with higher salt concentration? I don’t think that would work in your body’s favor.
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