• Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 days ago

    Imagining a scenario where a patient is kept conscious because they have a steady supply of oxygen via their butt but can not breathe with their lungs sounds fucking awful. Better than dying perhaps, but the perpetual feeling of wanting to breathe but being unable to is horrendous.

    If you’re putting oxygen into the body, you’re also still going to use that and produce carbon dioxide. Where is that going to go if you have respiratory failure?

    • Carcharodonna [she/her]@hexbear.netOP
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      5 days ago

      That’s a great question. Digging into it a bit more it appears that the liquid absorbs CO2 through the capillary walls into the liquid, in addition to delivering oxygen? So CO2 in the blood does appear to be removed but I’d need to read up on this a little more.

    • An Original Thought@lemmy.ml
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      5 days ago

      Better than dying perhaps, but the perpetual feeling of wanting to breathe but being unable to is horrendous.

      Would we still feel that desire to “breathe” via our lungs if we’re otherwise getting oxygen though?

      you’re also still going to use that and produce carbon dioxide. Where is that going to go if you have respiratory failure?

      Maybe the same channel? It did appear to be an enema of some sort, so the evacuation route might be the same. Farting contests might be about to get really intense.

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        5 days ago

        Maybe the same channel? It did appear to be an enema of some sort, so the evacuation route might be the same. Farting contests might be about to get really intense.

        The butt being able to absorb the oxygen doesn’t really also mean that there’s a mechanism for the butt to expel the carbon dioxide though. We do that through our lungs by exhaling and we clearly don’t expel enough carbon dioxide through non-exhaling methods to keep up with the amount we need to exhale.

        • An Original Thought@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          That does raise a good point. I don’t know human biology well enough to give an educated answer though. If oxygen can be absorbed rectally via this fluid, perhaps the fluid can exchange CO2 the same way though? Or maybe via a different fluid? Bit rough on the ass but any port in a storm I suppose.

      • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        5 days ago

        I would bet that you would have something equivalent to a phantom limb syndrome but for the diaphragm. I can’t imagine something so hardwired and subconscious goes away just because the basic chemical need is satisfied.

    • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      5 days ago

      Maybe injecting fluids in your ass will be less invasive and less painful than a breathing tube for temporary medical situations like surgeries. As a long-term thing, not great.

    • It does and I think this can’t work without breathing or some sort of lung life support. This butt oxygen sounds like something that could be a method of adding oxygen for situations where a person can’t keep up their spo2 via the lungs, but lungs still need to operate. The co2 heavy blood enters the lung circulation spesifically to expell the carbon dioxide and if that doesn’t happen I think we would end up acidic pretty fast.