[ksfrogman]

Originally Posted by Squawks

Hey, ks - I for one enjoy your technical posts. Your posts give me some insight on certain things I would not have known about in the medical domain. I did indeed notice your humor and I didn't mean to offend your post by carping about some technicality.

You brought up some interesting, natural, self-damaging concepts such as vomiting. Would you not concur that suffering from dehydration and/or physical damage to the digestive tract would be better off than completely digesting a stomach-full of toxins?

Whenever I think of the body it never ceases to amaze me how detailed it is, how parts and systems work so well together. Not to get off on a tangent about intelligent design, but think about how the body recycles red blood cells, breaks down the hemoglobin and converts some of this to bile, which is stored in a nice little bag we call the gallbladder, how the body knows that when we eat a fatty meal, it releases the bile into the portion of the small intestine to emulsify the fat. This is just amazing! If an alien from a distant planet were to land in an uninhabited portion of the Sahara desert, wake up after his long journey, step outside his space ship and see an old 1957 Chevy (don't ask me how it got there) there, he would discover that this car had wheels to help it roll, a radiator to cool down the engine, oil in the crankcase that circulated to lubricate the engine, camshafts to control the opening and closing of intake and exhaust valves, etc. He would think that whoever designed this was pretty smart. The body is like a very complex machine. Okay, I'll get off my soap box now.

The old way of thinking was that diarrhea was good in that it "flushed the toxins from the body." This is not entirely true. However, when people try to kill themselves by ingesting all sorts of interesting things, we sometimes do try to induce vomiting if that is appropriate. In other cases, we simply insert a tube to wash the stomach out, give charcoal to deactivate the toxin(s) or andidote, depending on what was consumed.

Sometimes nausea and vomiting are symptoms associated with a viral stomach/intestinal flu (gastroenteritis) and vomiting does more harm than good without ridding the body of any toxins. For this reason, medicines like Compazine, Inapsine, phenergan work on the stabilizing the part of the brain that "tells" the body to throw up.

[TYW]

I think we need to change "ksfrogman" to "Dr.K" or "Dr.Ke90" !

Very interesting thread Dr. K!

Thanks!!!

[vladinecko]

damn, these are VERY interesting posts, Dr. K (the name is catchy TYW! ) and Squawks! your discussions definitely brought a lot of light into subjects of our bodies' "self-cleansing" capabilities.

so are you saying that when i get drunk, get a horrible hang-over and vomit all next day, that is actually harmful to my body? i always thought of it necessary evil that will take everything out of my system, good or bad, just to get rid of the bad in hopes of replenishing the good later. from what you've said, it seems like you don't really get rid of the toxins anyway, is that true?

[Squawks]

In case of getting drunk yup, you'd vomit some alcohol out.

Sometimes you vomit for no reason like when there's noisome gases/vapors that are toxic as Dr. K mentioned as nausea. You'd throw up but that vomiting would do nothing to remedy the problem.

I was quite surprised that ksfrog is an MD. For the many months I've been on this site, ks has been talking in depth primarily about cars (especially about Supras)!

[vladinecko]

also, Dr. K , to elaborate more on the sneezing issue, when i feel that itching in my nose just before i sneeze, this is when blood vessels release liquid? what triggers the actual sneeze?

yeah, i know the pressing the middle of your upper lip under the nose trick. it only works with lighter sneezes though.

[Squawks]

Another interesting thing is that when you sneeze, your heart stops beating for fractions of millisecond.

Besides dieing, sneezing is the only other moment where your heart would ever stop beating in its entire lifetime.

[ksfrogman]

Originally Posted by vladinecko

also, Dr. K , to elaborate more on the sneezing issue, when i feel that itching in my nose just before i sneeze, this is when blood vessels release liquid? what triggers the actual sneeze?

yeah, i know the pressing the middle of your upper lip under the nose trick. it only works with lighter sneezes though.

Lol. You can just call me Michael or whatever.

vlad, you think like a doctor, because you want to know exactly what causes the sneeze to happen. i commend u for that. i always strive to know how something works. sometimes in medicine, we know certain treatments work, but don't know the exact mechanism--then we rely more on evidenced-based results.

i'm not an ENT doctor, though i believe we have an e90post member who is one, nor am i a neurologist, but i believe that there is some evidence that there is a neuro reflex mechanism responsible for inducing a sneeze. have you ever heard of someone who can induce a sneeze by staring into the direct sun (i'm not telling u to do this)? this is known as a photic sneeze theorized to be from overstimulation of the trigeminal nerve. i imagine there are sensory neurons in the nose that detect something is not normal, the signal gets sent to the central nervous system via afferent nerves, which stimulates the sneeze reflex.

when you touch something hot (not talking about your girlfriend, vlad), but say a piece of metal that you don't realize is hot, your hand will retract quicker than your brain can tell you what actually happened. That's an example of a reflex response.

[vladinecko]

Originally Posted by Squawks

Another interesting thing is that when you sneeze, your heart stops beating for fractions of millisecond.

Besides dieing, sneezing is the only other moment where your heart would ever stop beating in its entire lifetime.

ha ha i did not know that. so all allergy sufferers are therefore saving their hearts giving it a little rest every now and then

[vladinecko]

Originally Posted by ksfrogman

when you touch something hot (not talking about your girlfriend, vlad), but say a piece of metal that you don't realize is hot, your hand will retract quicker than your brain can tell you what actually happened. That's an example of a reflex response.

i was just going to make a comment about my girlfriend, ha ha, you ruined it for me!

anyway, i did take biology courses back in high school some time ago where we learnt about all kinds of reflexes and i remember our teacher giving us the exact same example. it truly is very fascinating. i remember one french cartoon loosely translated to "there once was one life" that gave all particles in human body a character and basically told a tale of a red blood cell from a child's birth till it aged and died. they showed exactly what you were talking about before how blood cells recycle and what happens to them after they become inept. i remember when the child got an infection they showed all bacteria as bad guys killing the good guys and then the kid got a shot of anti-biotics and they were all dressed in superhero uniforms and killed all the bad guys and the kid recovered. it was really cool.

[Squawks]

Another interesting thing - this time of the heart, is that if you were to isolate many single cells of the heart, you can see that each cell beats on its on, usually within defined intervals, under a microscope. The cells basically twitch and dilate/constrict a little each time they beat.

The interesting thing is that when you have two of these cells that are beating at different rates and/or intervals and push them together so that they touch, both of the cells will pause their beating and then resume a synchronized beating together.

Quite fascinating - I wonder how recent the symbol of a heart has been used to primarly indicate love because of this.

[ksfrogman]

Originally Posted by Squawks

Another interesting thing - this time of the heart, is that if you were to isolate many single cells of the heart, you can see that each cell beats on its on, usually within defined intervals, under a microscope. The cells basically twitch and dilate/constrict a little each time they beat.

The interesting thing is that when you have two of these cells that are beating at different rates and/or intervals and push them together so that they touch, both of the cells will pause their beating and then resume a synchronized beating together.

Quite fascinating - I wonder how recent the symbol of a heart has been used to primarly indicate love because of this.

The heart has several different pacemakers, each competing for control. The one that is supposed to take control is the SA (sino-atrial) node that sets the tone for the rhythmic synchronized firing and contracting of muscles of the atria and ventricles. Defects in the heart fibers or the network of electrical conductance can give the heart ectopic beats--Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVCs), Premature Atrial Contractions, and other arrythmias (V. Fib., Supraventricular Tachycardia, etc.)

As far as the heart being a love symbol, many people do manifest with chest pain, palpitations, and the like when they are heart broken. Wouldn't surprise me if that had something to do with the origins of this as a symbol of love.

[Squawks]

Originally Posted by ksfrogman

The heart has several different pacemakers, each competing for control. The one that is supposed to take control is the SA (sino-atrial) node that sets the tone for the rhythmic synchronized firing and contracting of muscles of the atria and ventricles. Defects in the heart fibers or the network of electrical conductance can give the heart ectopic beats--Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVCs), Premature Atrial Contractions, and other arrythmias (V. Fib., Supraventricular Tachycardia, etc.)

I agree with that - but I don't think any of those dictate the beating of isolated, singular heart cells. I think what you're speaking of constitutes the entire heart as a whole organ. You do, however, have to culture heart cells in a special way to enable them to beat on petri dishes.

EDIT: Quite interesting indeed if deep grief can lead to heart defects like palpitations.