Friday, April 5, 2013

Gangrene



Gangrene terrifies me, really it does. Have you watched the movie Frida? She gets gangrene, it comes out of bloody nowhere and her skins all black and they have to cut off her foot. It was so scary.
However, if you move (slowly) away the terrifying disease you may find it interesting.
Gangrene is a sort of vague term. It basically means tissues in your body start to die. Your still alive while this happen it’s just a part of your body will start rot. The “tissues” in your body are important to sustain function to your body.
Here are some tissues:

 
You can get gangrene in any type of tissue, this determines the type of “gangrene” you have.
So if you lose muscle tissue you can’t move. If you lose epithelial tissue, you have no skin. If you lose connective tissue it means you’re going to start losing other types of tissue (same blood source as whatever it’s connecting). If you lose nervous tissue, you’re probably going to die.
The reason you get gangrene is if you don’t have blood “fueling” your “tissues”. This means don’t have any oxygen feeding your tissues and they start to die (this is called necrosis).



Treatment:
The best thing to do is to make sure you never ever get gangrene, however treatments for gangrene include amputation (for the most part) or antibiotics.
You really have to cut of the infected area. Gangrene spreads and you will die if important tissue stops functioning.

Causes:
The main cause of gangrene is a severe infection. So if a bacterial infection isn’t treated it can cause gangrene. People who have diabetes are more likely to get gangrene.  This is because high blood sugar can lead to restricted blood flow. If blood flow is restricted to the point where a part of your body can’t survive anymore, you get gangrene. Others at risk are:
Obese people
People with HIV/AIDS
People with any vascular disease( that can restrict blood flow)


This is one of the less nasty pictures I found, I decided to be a good person and only show you feet.
The skins on the foot is greyish because its rotting, I hope the surgeon throws it out soon (ha ha).
So that the lovely picture I’m going to leave you with, so remember to keep track of infections and keep you arteries squeaky clean!

3 comments:

  1. Wow it's a good thing this isn't insanely common. Gangrene's always made nervous. There's the tissue rotting away and the possibility of having to get something cut off and aaack. It's good that you told us how to avoid it too. I guess it's common sense to take of your arteries but still. Great post. Even the gross picture at the end.

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    1. Its just when people think of diabetes or vascular disease they don't think of gangrene. But this stuff really happens.Either your really careful when you have these conditions. As in if you have an infection...fix it. Or you can avoid stuff like this altogether by being healthy.
      Its just that shit happens man...nobody thinks it will but it does. People get sick, including scary crappy diseases like gangrene.
      Thanks for the comment! C:

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  2. If that's one of the less nasty pictures I would not want to see the other ones. Gangrene is a freaky disease. Rotting body parts are just not ok. I think people just need to be vigilant in staying healthy (and prevention if you have a condition that makes you more susceptible to new diseases) and protecting their bodies from infections and then maybe we could all avoid things like gangrene or having to get limbs amputated.

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