Medical science continues to baffle us with its complexity aimed at improving our way of life.
While theories and years-long experiments lead to solutions, there are still many mysteries surrounding the human body and its miraculous functions that stump experts specializing in biochemistry, pathology, and physiology, among many others.
Many of us can't even begin to comprehend the science behind perceived miracles.
Determined to blow our minds, Redditor Monke_0101 asked:
"What is a crazy medical fact that most people don't know about?"
Official Time Of Death
"I can't declare a hypothermic person deceased until we warm them to room temperature."
– GuitarEvening8674
"They're not dead until they're warm and dead."
– Hot-Data686
"Damn, i thought Grey's Anatomy made that up."
– HeyWaitHUHWhat
"Nope, there has been several cases of people drowning in very cold water for an extended period that not only were revived, but had minimal brain damage."
– SilverNeurotic
Rude Awakening
"My friend woke up naked in the morgue with a toe tag on."
"He had been surfing in California and the cord connecting him to his board got snagged on a rock underwater. He remembers seeing the surface but not being able to reach it. His girlfriend fished him out, called 911, and did CPR for about 45 minutes until they arrived."
"When they got there they said, 'nope, he’s dead.' She said 'Are you sure? Because I thought…' They said 'nope, he’s dead,' and they bagged and tagged him. He woke up in the morgue."
"No brain damage. Still some trauma around it."
"EDIT: Interestingly and unrelated, this friend has also been hit by lightning twice. He’s either really lucky or really unlucky, I can’t figure out which."
– SerpentineRPG
Finding Levity
"You just reminded me of the memory of when my grandfather (who was like a father to me) died. It was me, my mom, and my aunt all around him at 5AM, and I got to hold his hand from 10PM to then. He suddenly became lucid, said 'oh wow' and passed away while looking at us. It was very sweet and was a good way to go."
"Which makes it mortifying that I said to my mom and aunt 2 minutes after, tears still pouring from our eyes, 'We should probably leave the room. People sometimes defecate when they die.' ”
"It weirdly became a good memory for all 3 of us, and I think my jokester grandfather probably thought it was hilarious, if it's true the brain is still active minutes after the heart stops. :’)"
– ElitistCuisine
Cold Stare
"It's impressively hard to close someone's eyes after they die."
"Not like on TV."
"You press them down, and then they open back up a little. Then you have to press them closed again and press a little harder."
"I know. I was bedside when my Dad passed away. If he was still in the room, I bet he had a good chuckle."
"Miss him."
– Ludwig_Vista2
Your body is a wonderland.
Kidney Gains
"When you get a kidney transplant they don’t take out your original kidneys, so you have 3 kidneys after a transplant. Also, they transplant the new kidney into your abdomen and it sits on top of your pelvis/hip area."
"If you get multiple transplants, they just keep adding new kidneys in. I’ve known of patients who’ve had 6 kidneys. I learned a lot about this during my kidney transplant 6 years ago. ♻️"
– Traveling_mustang
It's Hard
"If a man has fallen, and gets a boner, do not move him. It’s a sign of spinal injury."
– MidniteOG
"Is that a spine injury, or are you just happy to see me?"
– CrocoDial69
"I'm a NY Rescue Medic for the FD. It's actually something we check for. People who don't know and see it probably think we're a bunch of pervs."
– rroberts3439
"Years ago, my brother was in a motorcycle accident and both arms plus his pelvis were broken in multiple places each. Stripped to nothing in the ER Xray room, the nurse had to tape the offending organ to his leg."
"He was already drugged at that point and has no memory of anything after the accident."
– MightyKittenEmpire2
Regeneration
"I had a total thyroidectomy last year due to thyroid cancer. I learned that, in rare cases, your body can regrow thyroid tissue (maybe healthy/functioning, maybe not) from the very small number of thyroid cells left behind."
"It’s the reason thyroid cancer patients need to be on a high dose of replacement hormone to suppress the production of thyroid stimulating hormone that could trigger regrowth. It was wild to learn that removing the gland doesn’t always solve the issue."
– trizer81
Prepared For Battle
"Your immune system can just decide to attack whatever."
"It can decide that your hair follicles are a deadly threat and make you bald. It can go after your spinal cord and make it so your legs feel like they're on fire 24/7. It can attack your organs and cause damage severe enough to necessitate a transplant."
"It can eat holes in your brain. It can tear up your joints. You can even wake up blind because your eyes were on your immune system's hitlist for today."
"I think people are aware of autoimmune conditions, but I think most people don't think about how much can go wrong."
– hillbilly-manWho knew? Experts continue giving us mind-blowing factoids.
Hit Restart
"A defibrillator actually stops your heart. It’s up to your body to restart things correctly. The equivalent of the IT guy asking if you’ve tried turning it off and on again."
– NoSwimmers45
"And if your heart isn’t beating at all - a defibrillator can’t be used either. That’s why you see them doing chest compressions - stopping and listening/ reading the machine to see if there is any shockable rhythm. If not they resume cpr and check again after a while."
– Fresh-Attorney-3675
Mind Of Its Own
"Pneumothorax (collapsed lung) can just like...happen. if you sneeze or cough or just breathe wrong, your lung can 'nope' and collapse."
– cat_prophecy
"More info!"
"Your lungs are very loosely 'glued' to your chest walls by a layer of mucus. If air gets out of your lungs and into that space between the lung and your skin, the pressure will force your lung to collapse. This can happen for many reasons! Sometimes your lung can just rupture because it had a bad day."
"Anything under 80% capacity loss can usually fix itself, the air in your chest cavity is absorbed back into the body. Anything more than 20% is a problem. Infection and death would be the next steps without medical intervention."
"Happened to me, left lung collapsed to 20% capacity, they reinflated it, 2 weeks later happened again."
"Pleurodesis, is when they mess up your lung and skin with medical grade lye powder and then stick the two together. The resulting damaged tissue heals into 1 solid piece so even if there is a rupture the lung cannot be forced down."
"The left side of my back was numb for nearly 10 years because all the nerves in the skin were toasted by the chemical powder."
– gummby8
Flip Flopped
"Situs inversus - a congenital condition in which the major visceral organs are reversed or mirrored from their normal positions. which I only learned about when reading about Catherine O’Hara (Home Alone, Schitt’s Creek)- apparently her organs, like heart, lungs etc are flipped to the opposite sides of her body."
– katasoupie
The Thing About Cancer
"Everyone knows that if you feel a lump in your breast you gotta get that checked out, but there are actually twelve symptoms of breast cancer. <- the SFW image on this site (an entirely woman-run nonprofit) literally saved my life — my doc did a physical exam, didn’t feel a lump, and tried to send me packing, dismissing the weird allergic-reaction-looking patch of skin on my chest. Any change in your chest — dimples, dents, skin texture, itching, dry skin, anything run it by your doctor and trust your gut."
"In my year of treatment and monthly checkups for the last few years, I always make a point to ask one nurse or doctor if they know there are 12 symptoms, and they don’t know — point being not that docs suck (there’s a lot to learn, women’s health is secondary in med school, etc) but that you have to dial in and fight for yourself."
– lizlemonista
"Endometriosis (tissue from the womb) is not cancer. But it can send out cells that spread through your internal organs and grow, stick your guts together or block them, deform your organs and eat holes through them, and spread up to your diaphragm and lungs. Unsurprisingly, this is agonisingly painful."
"Something like 1 in 10 women have it. And apparently it's still not worth doing research into."
– LegalFox9
Many of the examples above are news to most of us as we didn't learn about them in class.
With medical scientists and health experts still making new discoveries in many areas of specialization, including molecular biology and genetics, we are walking miraculous inventions.
