6 days ago
Medical Professionals Share Horrifying Body Facts
I recently scoured a medical subreddit and asked medical professionals in the BuzzFeed Community to share a horrifying body fact they know that would make the average person wish they'd stayed completely oblivious.
The responses I received did NOT disappoint. Without further ado, here are their 15 most creepy and horrifying body facts:
"You can cough, sneeze, or vomit so hard you can collapse your lung."
"Some people have what are called blebs on their lungs. I think of it like a blister on the lung. Blisters, well, they pop. If you do any of the above so, so, so hard or prolonged, that blister can rupture and cause an opening where air rushes into the pleural space (area between your lung and rib cage) and your lung will collapse. It's normally men. I've had patients that this has happened to from mundane things such as vomiting or from food poisoning."—ICU Nurse
"You can contract chlamydia in your eyes. Usually, through the method you would think. I've seen two cases in 10 years, always because someone was cheating."
"You really do see the light leave someone's eyes when they die. Almost like dead fish eyeballs. I've seen so many dead bodies, especially since I worked both rounds of COVID in the ICU."
"Your belly button is a tiny jungle of bacteria — and it can host species not found anywhere else on Earth."
"In a study by the Belly Button Biodiversity Project, scientists swabbed hundreds of navels and discovered thousands of bacterial species — many unique to individuals, and some previously unknown to science. It's basically a personalized petri dish in the middle of your torso."—Naturopathic Doctor
"Cancer stinks. Like literally, it smells putrid, especially breast and skin cancer (in my experience). I've had so many cancer patients where you can just smell the tumors. It's like rotten, putrid, sour meat that's been rotting in the sun for weeks. Like a deer carcass that's been left on the side of the road in the summer heat for a month."
"You can slow somebody's heart rate by pressing on their eyeballs. The individual response is fairly variable, but in some people it's pronounced enough that pressing on their eyeballs will actually stop their heart entirely!"
"The elderly experiencing memory loss has been linked to having constipation."
—ApatheticMoose
"Lymph nodes are super tiny! I was in the OR watching my brain-dead patient getting her organs removed for transplant. They showed me the lymph nodes. I had no idea they were so tiny because they can cause such huge and painful problems. It was about the size of a single Nerds candy. All scattered throughout our body are Nerd candies."
"I attended a bedridden, 86-year-old man who was cared for by his wife at home, who was also in her 80s. He developed a huge bedsore on his lower back, the size of a dinner plate, that exposed his spine and surrounding muscles. The wound was full of pus, and some maggots crawled out. One thing to learn about the skin: A sore will start to develop on healthy, intact skin if pressure is applied to it, even for less than a week. It's good practice to turn a bedridden patient to one side a few times to avoid the complication of bed sores."
—Retired Family Doctor
"Fat can be yellow like chicken fat. I was in the OR watching my brain-dead patient's organs get harvested for transplant. When they took out the heart, the surgeon pointed out things on the heart before it was bagged and put on ice in a cooler. The heart was somewhat fatty, and the fat looked like yellow chicken fat. I mean, we are still all meat in the end."
"Bartholin gland. It produces the vagina's lubricant and can get clogged or develop cysts. As a nurse, I have had patients with this, and it seems very, very painful!"
"You can get lidocaine poisoning with everyday over-the-counter products. Lidocaine creams, patches, ointments, whatever."
"Your blood can become so fatty that you can see the fat separate, like meat tallow."
"I had a patient whose lipase was greater than 50,000. It was during COVID. He was so lonely that he nearly ate himself to death. He had a central line. I drew up my blood waste and set it on the sink. I forgot it was there until a little while later. When I went to throw it away, the blood and fat had separated. Half of the syringe was dark red blood, and the other half was milky and fatty."—ICU Nurse
"Humans have anal glands! Owners of dogs and cats may know that there are two fluid-holding glands on the anus. This incredibly stinky fluid is squeezed out as a firm stool passes through the anus. Sometimes the glands become impacted and need to be expressed (squeezed) and/or treated for infection. Luckily, ours are microscopic, but every pet owner I have told about this is horrified."
And finally...
"You have more bacteria cells in your body than you have human cells in your body. We are basically walking bacteria factories."
Did any of these body facts surprise you? Medical professionals, what are some things you know about the human body that most people don't? Tell us in the comments below or use this Google form to remain anonymous.
