Been away

well been away all weekend sorry i havnt been posting ! but boooooya ! passed my fitness test so im pretty happy . also got my hands on some new kit ! more celox gauze ! seee my preious posts to find out what it is used for .

thought id give a little tribute to the RAF pilot who was killed this weekend when his red arrow aircraft crash . my thought are with his family :( .

Equipment idea

hey guys

been thinking to and iv got a new idea for a bit of new medical equipment ... but have no idea how to go around producing it lol does anyone know a chemistry professitional ? .... hmmmmm  il post more about this if i get anywhere with it lol . any way in other news anyone seee the guy wih the new biometric arm ?? pretty sweet to be honest actually give him full range of motion ! altho he can rota the wrist 360 degrees ... bit freaky if you on a first date . hopefully with a few more advancement these will make people with amputations more mobile ! good news for my fellow soilders and ex soilders :)

catchya !

Explosions!

ok so everyone knows that explosions are pretty bad ! an everyone know the closer you are the worse the injury !. so iv got a little tip the army has taught me . there is a condition called blast lung this is caused by the over pressure from the postive wave of the explosion it ruptures the small vessells inside the lung called alveioli and causes the lung to fill with fluid  then the patients breathing to deteriorate. this condition is also somtimes hard to miss . so heres the tip .....when dealing with patients who have sustained a blast injury look for bleeding from the ears it requires the same amount of pressure to rupture the inner ear as it does the lung ! soo a patient who is bleeding from the ear following explosion should be screened for blastlung and patinets without can be at a lower priorty until conditions change ( other injurys dependent )

little fact !

Sunday

Well safe to say i can't be arsed today typical Sunday feeling ! . Just want to be lying in bed but iv got to work ! Didn't help I was out last ... Altho I don't drink.... On the plus side got offered a job in the club lol. I'm prob the only guy that can go out and come back with more money than I started with , no hangover , a number and a job interveiw ... Anyway I know this has nothing to do with medicine but fuck it !

Have a good Sunday off you lucky fuckers !

Never fails to amaze me !

I was reading the news today and saw this article relateing to a new electronic tattoo so doctors can monitor patients intresting :) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14489208

Watch this space :D

looks like i may be getting my posting so il be blogging from afgan ! booooo ya !!!

Gunshot

I found this in one of my med manuals good example of a GSW to the arm .

Cavitation and GSW

Alright folks

I was asked about cavitaion today during gunshot injurys so i thought i would post a wee explaintion ! .

ok so all fire arms used diffrent caliber ammunition eg the british army use the standard nato 5.56mm . each round has its one mass and will leave the weapon at a certain volicty . so the kinetic energry = 1/2 mv2

basicly the bigger and faster the round the more damage its likley to cause . also the shape of the round also determines the damage potential . the flatter the round the more energery will be dispensed into the body tissuse on impacted. where as a pointed round may pass stright through the body without despointing much energery.


so cavitation occurs when the round disposts its energery in the tissues of the body . this causes a cavity around 30 - 40 times bigger than the diameter of the bullet . cavitation affects differnt tissues in diffrent ways  for example if the roudn strikes a soild organ it will do more damage as the do not have the elastic properties of say the lung and cannot cope with the shock .

most military rounds are designed to tumble inside the body and will genrealy exit the body backwards . this tumbleing effect will cause the exit wound to be much greater .

another consideration is the length of the woudn track . the long the track the more engery the bullet will deposit into the tissues . the damage will be maximised if the bullet fails to exit .

ok baisc understanding but hope you found it intresting ! .

sorry folks

erm btw sorry for the terriable spelling on this blog . im slighty dislyxic .... if thats how you even spell it lol

Riots!

F*** me have you seen the riots that are going on in london! the place looks like a god dam war zone building are being brunt down and everything ! hats off to the guys in the police line and all the emergency services who will be definatly be doing over time  . i just hope there are not alot of casultys! and things die down before the govermnet go for heavy handed approch !

to everyone in london stay safe !

Fallshin out

Anyone seen the film repo men ?

well i was reading this today and it actually made me laugh ! take a read of this page on the bbc website ! . a resercher thinks it would be a good idea to let students sell kidneys . fair enough i can see people being tempted by £28,0000 for a kidney but i doubt they would think about the long term ....what the hell would they do if they develop a renal problem ?? anyway ! look for yourself

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-14379215

First post !

Well guys this is my first post ! so i thot id talk about something i think is a massive leap forward in the my line of work . any nurses , doctors , surgeons  or even Paramedics will have heard of these what im talking about is topical hemostaics. to give you an idea i work as a medic withe the uk reserve forces my role in the army is to provide life saving first aid to soilder injured in combat ...so the majour part of the job is being able to stop bleeding FAST! .

For anyone that doesnt know topical hemostaics that are used in the military setting are

Quickclot - this comes in a vacum sealed bags and contains granuals that can be poured directly into a wound

Hemcon - this is a small square stiff dressing that can be placed of stumps or inside wounds with a defintive source of bleeding.

Celox gauze - this uses the same chemical compund as hemcon but comes as a gauze roll and as a result can be used in a wide array of injurys .

so why are these used ? well in the pre hospital military wounds can vary greatly its not as simple as slaping a dressing over the wound and its solved . for serious limb wound we can  use combat tourniquets to control bleeds that cannot be controled with simple pressure or indirect pressure but what if the injury is in groin ? or the armpit ? or even the neck ? well this is where hemostaics come into play they can be forced into these spaces to control bleeding .

How do they work ?

Well most of these products contain a chemical called Chitosan which is made from shrimp shelll . in simple terms Chitosan contains a postive charge which attracts red blood cells which are negativly charged . this cause a clot to form very quikly once the dressing has been placed into the wound and thus stop bleeding very quickly .


Are they dangerous ?

most of the compunds used are fairly safe if protocolsl for their use is followed . they also cause no known (to my knowlage) allergic reactions and are very sterile and easy removed from the body . theres is however 1 expection to this in my mind. the Product Quickclot or other simliar comes in a vacum sealed pack and works diffrently to the likes of Hemcon or cleox . once Quickclot is poured into a wound and it comes into contact with blood it causes an exothermic reaction up to 57.c  this means that if granuals fall onto skin that has sweat or blood in contact with it this will cause a cheimical burn .  i would also no advised to use the likes of quicklcot on high artieal bleeding as it can spurt the grannuals and mix with blood which  could harm the rescuer .altho if the bleeding is well controled through pressure this could be used .

in my mind these are a great tool for any pre hosital rescuer but it cannot be stressed these are emergency products efforts should always be made to control bleeding through contventional routes eg pressure or indrect pressure but an experianced medic will know just by looking at a wound if this viable .

in my role now we mainly use celox gauze  now and has replaced hemocon and quickclot


i have heard of these prodcuts being used in surgery but i do not know how they are used ... i assume in the same mannor to the pre hospital enviroment . if anyone knows anything about there use in surgery please let me know :)

so i dont know what else to write  i could go on forver about this ! : ) theres a few links below to  some of the items iv been talking about . any questions or corrections are welcome :D .

http://hemcon.com/Products/HemConBandageOverview/HemConBandage2x2.aspx

http://www.celoxmedical.com/prods_gauze.htm

couldnt find the info page for quickclot sorry !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJRs-ZNX6tA&feature=related

good little video showing how its applied .

well cheers guys ! il post anthor random medical topic soon :)