The Medical Thread

For several days straight? Must be some incredibly tenacious and durable germs, then. Though that brings the question of why it only raises the body temperature by a few degrees at most above 37 Celsius.

edited 19th Mar '14 4:59:29 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I think this is due to bodily functions increasing in speed with rising temperature including the immune system, with a few degrees more not really killing that many germs. If you go above a certain body temperature you'll die because your body-chemistry is optimized for a this certain heat and too much higher and molecules essential for your ongoing survival are going to break.

I see. The body speeds up its metabolic rate to assist the immune system and/or attempt to "flush" out the invading pathogen, then. Makes sense.

PS: I already knew about why it won't willingly go above that temperature (IIRC sometimes, however, the sickness will force it to go above that, which will lead to a slow and agonizing death if not quickly addressed). I was more making fun of the fact that if we assume the "boil germs alive" reasoning is true, then the body seems to mistakenly believe that the necessary temperature to boil germs alive is about half what it takes to make blood actually boil.

... I did not know that that (the better-efficiency-with-heat part) was even possible.

edited 19th Mar '14 5:23:11 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Actually, several aspects of our immune systems (like leukocytes) work more efficiently a few degrees above normal body-heat. It's why a fever? Is actually self-induced. The problem is... keeping it on the effective setting without getting to the "too hot even for the immune system to work". Which, frankly, we often suck at.

It's not actually an attempt to "boil germs and viruses" — just jack up the performance of the lymph system in general so it can deal with whatever the issue is.

Eh, I'm not a scientist.

My ridiculously incorrect idea sounds cooler though.

Oh really when?

Marq: Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear people talk about bizarre anatomy and their fetishes is not likely to be wholly unaware of futa doujin?

Anyway, conventional teaching on fever goes with Euo's explanation.

edited 19th Mar '14 6:12:43 PM by Pyrite

Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.

So, I got my grades for my second exam on human biology.

After carefully deliberating the score and resisting the urge to sob and flip my desk over, I concluded that I should never consider a career in biology/medicine. Not that I was planning anyway.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Trying singing the bone song.

Hip bone is connected to the whatever bone.

I wasn't good at biology either.

Oh really when?

...I was actually better at Chemistry in my school days. These days, Medicine is as much about bedside manner and interpersonal relations as it is about head knowledge.

Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.

And inside knowledge of Excel and Access.

I don't know, it's just that it seems that my input to output ration on those fields is drastically lower than other fields: I pretty much get all As and subjects like English and history, even though i don't put any extra effort on them.. Got B on the introductory communication, though. XD

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Well ain't you special? >_<

hashtagsarestupid

I hear that a lot. In both meanings.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I didn't take biology in high school. I was, however, accepted into the Australian Physics Olympiad team, so...logic.

So about fevers!

They're not just caused by infection. A fever is a systemic sign of inflammation, so they can also be from diseases such as cancer. The body releases chemical mediators such as interleukins and tumour necrosis factor in response to a wide variety of stimuli (of which bacterial products are the most common), which stimulate the production of prostaglandins. Prostaglandins have a number of functions, but in the hypothalamus, they cause what is called the "temperature set point" to be put at a higher temperature. Thus, the body thinks it is cold when it is at a normal temperature. That's why when one has a fever, one shivers, gets goosebumps, tries to produce more heat etc. - these are all normal responses to feeling cold. Conversely, when the set point is reset to normal, the body tries to cool down, and one gets flushes and sweats.

The hypothalamus is able to signal to all parts of the body, hence why there is a systemic response. It's like a siren blasting at the cells in the body: "WARNING! WE ARE TOO COLD. MAKE MORE HEAT." I won't go into the biochemistry, but essentially, all cells contain machinery to transform forms of fuel - carbohydrates, fats, proteins, ketones - into a "universal currency", ATP, which is used to power cell reactions and processes. This process isn't perfect, though, so it will generate heat in all its steps. The body can also direct itself to put more energy into making heat, rather than useful work.

As for the body not being able to burn its fuel that much...well, you are correct in that this must have consequences. Creating this much heat takes a lot of energy. A chronic fever leads to weight loss - this is called cachexia, and it occurs in things like cancer, AIDS and chronic inflammatory conditions. It's a very worrying sign. There are also drugs like DNP, which cause the body to convert all its fuel into heat rather than ATP. DNP was used as a dieting aid in the past. It's very effective for losing weight...but people can pretty much boil themselves alive doing it, due to the sheer amount of heat produced.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

The Krebs cycle: so inefficiently wonky, it's surprising it ever got off the ground. But it did: and all eukaryotes are stuck with it in all it's occasionally over-clocked glory.

...And, some of us were even dumb enough to stop producing our own citric acid. Just to make our lives that much more interesting. <_<

edited 20th Mar '14 2:50:34 AM by Euodiachloris

Hmmm? That's interesting. I was in the Singapore team to the International Biology Olympiad back in my year, despite being objectively better in Chemistry. (Don't like to bring it up too much because there's never a good place to drop it in conversation, and also because my grades were pretty mediocre as a medical student.) It's usually hard to do well in Biology (at least, from experience), because it combines the writing of very long essays with a need to memorise heaps upon heaps of details. Me? Turns out my true forte was answering multiple-choice questions.

Also, I knew 2,4-DNP sounded familiar! It's been a while. For the record, it screws around with the oxidative phosphorylation pathway, not the Krebs cycle.

So, fever: In medical practice, like Yuan said, not all fevers are related to infection. The three big categories of febrile illnesses are infections, inflammatory conditions (e.g. connective tissue diseases, autoimmune disorders) and malignancies. Other causes include blood clots, intracranial injury (presumably due to effects on the hypothalamus), drugs and their side effects, hyperthyroidism, and if Peggy Lee is to be believed, chicks were born to give you fever.

...Remind me not to take history or literature lessons from her, though.

edited 20th Mar '14 5:21:59 AM by Pyrite

Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.

The random questions thread over in Writer's Block links here for medical questions, so I'm asking my question here.

Is there a place on the upper body where a person could take a fairly large slashing wound and not have anything too important slashed up? I want a character in a story I'm plotting out to take such a wound and then treat it herself, and I want to do it realistically enough that any readers who have some knowledge on the subject won't work themselves into a frothing fit of rage when it happens. Meaning I don't want her to take a knife to the heart, put a band-aid on it and be A-OK.

The biggest issues with slash wounds are the blood vessels◊ and nerves◊, plus the trachea in the upper torso and neck.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

...The problem with that is the "safest" place to get slashed would be... the back (if the kidneys are missed and the wound is rather shallow). But, the main problem would be the "treating herself" bit: you try reaching around to do that healthy, let alone injured. <_<

@Septimus Heap: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. There's so much important stuff up there, but where else is someone going to get slashed in a fight? It's not like someone is going to spring from behind a bush to slash at your buttocks.

Sounds like you want a shallow slash across the upper torso, but not involving the neck or shoulders. So, a long slash across the front of the ribcage. It will look impressive, hurt like hell, and make moving painful for a good while, but it will be limited to mostly surface muscles — the big veins and trunk nerves are inside the ribs in that area.

edited 22nd Mar '14 2:54:31 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Sounds dandy, Madrugada. Thankee kindly.

Shallow-but-wide slashing chest wound sounds like the best option. (Not stabbing, though. That's much more dangerous once it gets past the ribcage.) There's one obvious complication, but you can probably write around it. If not, the abdomen might be a good second choice, but again - shallow and wide is the better option for more dramatics and less danger.

edited 22nd Mar '14 5:30:16 PM by Pyrite

Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.

3-D model links facial features and DNA

Electric 'thinking cap' controls learning speed

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

But can you power it with lemons?

edited 24th Mar '14 10:14:25 AM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?