That sounds sexy like a date with a porcupine but Russian scientists have come up an astounding medical procedure which would have had substantial impact in my own life. They have developed a technique to 'cement' broken bones together again and speed the healing. (RT: Russian scientists create ‘bio-cement’ for human bones)
A lot of the pain from a properly-broken bone comes from the broken bits rubbing against each other. Some hurt more than others and the worst hurt like a mofo.
Tip: don't ever break your collarbone as there is nothing doctors can do except to wrap a figure-eight binding across your shoulders to pull them back. That doesn't do much to immobilize the bone and you gonna hurt behind that.
(Ed: are there any bones you have not broken?)
I've never broken my arms or legs. My specialty is breaking the parts that hold them together (e.g. shoulder, collarbone, pelvis, foot bones, knee, thumb ... maybe more, not sure.
Usually the approach with a broken bone is to try to 'set it' to get the bone segments positioned correctly relative to each other and then put a cast on it. This provides external immobilization but the bone can still move within it. The beauty of the Russian approach is that it will immobilize the bone internally. The disadvantage is that surgery would always be required but the benefit and reduction in pain could be enormous.
When there's so little news that's worth a damn, it's cool to find this one. You may find good things in this article beyond the science as what they did is really simple ... once you know how to do it. The elegance of it is a large part of why I'm so encouraged by it as much of medicine is so egregiously primitive (i.e. if a part breaks, cut it out and hope the patient doesn't croak). Psychology is about the same as they've been obsessed with serotonin re-uptake for fifty years or so ... and lunatics still crash planes into mountains while they use them.
So this Russian advance is compelling and you may well find interest in it even if you never broke a bone. I've broken many and I see immediately what a large effect this procedure would have had on my life. There were multiple surgeries to put pins into my bones and then multiple surgeries to take them back out again. No more of that with this Russian bone cement.
And, get this, they do it with a 3D printer. Now we're getting into some real Jetsons stuff. This is the future they were talkin' about.
A lot of the pain from a properly-broken bone comes from the broken bits rubbing against each other. Some hurt more than others and the worst hurt like a mofo.
Tip: don't ever break your collarbone as there is nothing doctors can do except to wrap a figure-eight binding across your shoulders to pull them back. That doesn't do much to immobilize the bone and you gonna hurt behind that.
(Ed: are there any bones you have not broken?)
I've never broken my arms or legs. My specialty is breaking the parts that hold them together (e.g. shoulder, collarbone, pelvis, foot bones, knee, thumb ... maybe more, not sure.
Usually the approach with a broken bone is to try to 'set it' to get the bone segments positioned correctly relative to each other and then put a cast on it. This provides external immobilization but the bone can still move within it. The beauty of the Russian approach is that it will immobilize the bone internally. The disadvantage is that surgery would always be required but the benefit and reduction in pain could be enormous.
When there's so little news that's worth a damn, it's cool to find this one. You may find good things in this article beyond the science as what they did is really simple ... once you know how to do it. The elegance of it is a large part of why I'm so encouraged by it as much of medicine is so egregiously primitive (i.e. if a part breaks, cut it out and hope the patient doesn't croak). Psychology is about the same as they've been obsessed with serotonin re-uptake for fifty years or so ... and lunatics still crash planes into mountains while they use them.
So this Russian advance is compelling and you may well find interest in it even if you never broke a bone. I've broken many and I see immediately what a large effect this procedure would have had on my life. There were multiple surgeries to put pins into my bones and then multiple surgeries to take them back out again. No more of that with this Russian bone cement.
And, get this, they do it with a 3D printer. Now we're getting into some real Jetsons stuff. This is the future they were talkin' about.
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