And you thought Afros, headbands, and knee high tube socks were old school.
From the BBC:
An intensive course of leech therapy has helped save the leg of a lorry driver injured in a freak accident.David Isitt needed more than 30 leeches over a week to suck blood out of a large skin flap on his leg where the skin was struggling to survive.
Mr Isitt, from the Isle of Dogs, faced amputation if the treatment failed – but he is now standing on both legs again, and learning to walk unaided.
The treatment was carried out at the Royal London Hospital.
Mr Isitt was injured in March when he slipped off the side of his tipper truck while checking that his cargo of concrete was secure.
He fell nearly 2.5m onto the road and shattered several major bones in his right leg.
He was taken by Air Ambulance to the Royal London, where he underwent the first of several major orthopaedic operations by expert surgeons to save his leg.
A final operation involved a specialist plastic surgeon moving a large skin flap to the front of Mr Isitt’s leg to cover the newly repaired bone.
In complicated procedures such as this it is sometimes difficult to maintain a normal blood flow in the skin flap – and the tip of Mr Isitt’s skin flap started to go blue.
Mr Isitt said: “It was really quite a worrying time. It was clear that the skin flap was not getting enough blood and I was worried the skin would die or might become infected.
“The conventional treatments didn’t seem to be working and it looked like I may need to have it all removed and undergo another major operation.”
At this point that the clinical nurse specialist, Daren Edwards decided to use leeches to save the skin flap.
The animals can draw the blood away from the skin which allows it to survive long enough for the veins to start working normally again.
Mr Isitt said: “I was a bit surprised when they suggested using leeches but they are the experts so I trusted their judgement.”
Within days colour returned to the skin flap but in total the leeches were needed for more than a week to restore effective circulation of the blood.
Mr Edwards said: “I’ve used them before but not over such a long period and that is a reflection of the seriousness of Mr Isitt’s injuries.
“Without the assistance of the leeches his flap may have failed, and a more complicated reconstruction been required.
“At worst, the fracture may have become infected, and he may have lost that leg.”
— At which point Mr. Edwards says he would have eased Mr Isitt’s emotional trauma by hiring a coven of witches to put Isitt under a sleeping spell before drilling a quarter-inch hole into his skull to “release the demons.”
Such is, after all, one of the most efficient ways to bring the humours back into equilibrium.
Comment by Ouroboros on 8/16 @ 10:12 am #
My flap almost failed once.. I didnt have to resort to leeches but suction did seem to do the trick. Call it ‘Old School’ if you like.
Comment by Ouroboros on 8/16 @ 10:24 am #
“It’s alright..” she said with a little shrug and sympathetic glance, “every guy’s flap fails now and then. It’s no big deal… Really.” But I knew by the look in her eye that she was just being kind as she pick up her pillow and Hitachi Mega-Wand and went off to sleep on the couch.
tw: interests performs .. no explanation needed
Comment by happyfeet on 8/16 @ 10:33 am #
Full Figure Baseball Gear on John Cole: “reasonable conservative” [UPDATED: NOW WITH MORE "IMPENETRABLE GIBBERISH"]
Is the TW system infecting the spam-bots?
Comment by Jeff G. on 8/16 @ 10:36 am #
Yes. WP has a spam catcher, but it seems not to be very thorough.
Comment by ThomasD on 8/16 @ 10:40 am #
That’s a really poor explanation of how leeches function.
Leeches excrete anticoagulants (hirudin being one of the principle agents) in order to feed. When used on skin grafts this localized anticoagulation effect reduces clotting in the small blood vessels within the graft resulting in improved blood flow and better graft survival.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/16 @ 10:42 am #
Mostly that was just a fat joke. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t usually make fat jokes. But I didn’t have anything clever to say about leeches, so I went for the fat joke.
Comment by dicentra on 8/16 @ 11:03 am #
My favorite treatment is the use of maggots to clean dead skin off third-degree burns. They showed it once on House with this kid they couldn’t do tests on because most of his torso was charred hamburger. The maggots squirmed and thrashed. It was cool.
TW: lengthen houses. Uncanny.
Comment by mojo on 8/16 @ 11:09 am #
If you’re using the spam-catcher’s defaults, the software’s response tree has most likely been mapped. You need to in-duh-vidualize…
Ain’t modern life grand?
SB: seas designated
seven
Comment by Jeff G. on 8/16 @ 1:14 pm #
Precisely why I favor witches, mojo. They may be Luddites, but damnit, they get shit done.
Comment by Drumwaster on 8/17 @ 12:56 pm #
My grand-daughter-in-law was in a REALLY bad accident last year, where her left hand was badly crushed, and all four fingers mostly severed. They used leeches to try and save her fingers after they had been surgically re-attached. It was kind of weird and didn’t work well enough (she ended up losing all four fingers, but they saved the thumb), but interesting in a “hey, let’s watch this show about autopsies” sorta way…
TW: between unlimited
Comment by sam on 8/17 @ 2:50 pm #
My daughter works as a nurses aid in a university hospital, and she likes to tell us about applying leeches to a patient with some big boo boo. Usually when we having dinner together.
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