Medical Gross-Out: Maggots and Leeches
YouTube medical grossness:
Eco-friendly medicine is finding its way into selected practice: maggots can clean out an infected wound (after all, they’re competing with bacteria for food):
and leeches help optimize blood flow for amputations via their blood-thinning saliva:
Also, a small study noted giving patients with Crohn’s disease pig whipworms improved their disease compared with placebo.
Can’t see the video due to a firewall, but I’ve used maggots before. Amazingly effective in selected situations. A little humorous on the response by nursing to having bugs in the hospital. Especially when you start walking around muttering “where did the rest of them go??”.
I’ve seen leaches in use before. Pretty cool little fellas.
Unfortunately, the patient in question had a skin graft on his hand which was stitched to his inner thigh. He always kept a careful eye on the leaches–he was afraid they were going to stray a bit more towards midline and his…um…private parts.