Recently, Reddit user u/Monke_0101 posted on the popular Ask Reddit page to ask the people of the internet, “What is a crazy medical fact that most people don’t know about?” Here are some of the wildest answers:
1.“I can’t declare a hypothermic person deceased until we warm them to room temperature.”
2.“When you get a kidney transplant, they don’t take out your original kidneys, so you have three 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 six kidneys. I learned a lot about this during my kidney transplant six years ago.”
—u/Traveling_mustang
Sebastian Kaulitzki / Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF
3.“It’s impressively hard to close someone’s eyes after they die. Not like on TV.”
Person in a leather jacket with a concerned expression, sitting in a bar setting. #SchittsCreek in the corner
Person with arched eyebrows and awkward expression, wearing a black leather jacket, in a bar setting. #SchittsCreek in corner
Pop TV / CBC Television / Via giphy.com
“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.”
—u/Ludwig_Vista2
4.“If a man has fallen and gets a boner, do not move him. It’s a sign of spinal injury.”
Person smiling, wearing a white apron and blouse, standing in a kitchen setting with tiled walls in the background
Person in a kitchen setting, wearing a white shirt, with a neutral expression
Bon Appétit / Via youtube.com
—u/Midnite06
“I’m a NY Rescue Medic for the [Fire Department]. [This is] actually something we check for. People who don’t know and see it probably think we’re a bunch of pervs.”
—u/rroberts3439
5.“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.”
—u/trizer81
6.“A defibrillator actually stops your heart. It’s up to your body to restart things correctly. It’s the equivalent of the IT guy asking if you’ve tried turning it off and on again.”
7.“Pneumothorax (collapsed lung) can just like… happen. If you sneeze or cough or just breathe wrong, your lung can say ‘nope’ and collapse.”
—u/cat_prophecy
8.“Situs inversus is a congenital condition in which the major visceral organs are reversed or mirrored from their normal positions.”
I only learned about it when reading about Catherine O’Hara (Home Alone, Schitt’s Creek) — apparently, her organs, like her heart, lungs, etc., are flipped to the opposite sides of her body.
—u/katasoupie
“My grandfather had this! Made his doctors very confused when he had appendicitis, and the pain was on the wrong side.”
—u/shaarlock
Ron Galella / Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
9.“Your stomach gets a new lining every few days to prevent it from digesting itself.”
—u/Swimming_Treat3818
10.“A lot of bone breaks don’t hurt that much. I work in radiology and while we don’t see the nasty breaks you do in trauma (which often REALLY hurt), we see a lot of broken toes, fingers, metacarpals, and metatarsals.”
A person with a surprised expression stands in a narrow hallway, wearing an off-shoulder top and a necklace
A person with tears in their eyes smiles while standing in a hallway, wearing an elegant necklace and earrings
Mubi, Metropolitan Filmexport / Via youtube.com
“Those breaks are often not easy to distinguish from muscle or tendon strain without imaging, and the patient[might be] acting completely normal. I used to think breaking anything would have someone on the floor in agony, but a lot of them are like, ‘Yeah it hurts when I bend it.’
If you want nightmare fuel: sometimes your spine can spontaneously break under its own weight. This is called a compression fracture.”
—u/Halospite
11.“Humans can live with one lung; the remaining one will expand and partially fill the rest of the chest cavity, which can lead to cardiac distress. It’s not the most pleasant existence, but people have made it up to 30 years like that.”
12.“Everyone knows that if you feel a lump in your breast, you gotta get that shit checked out, but there are actually 12 symptoms of breast cancer.”
“The SFW image on that site (an entirely woman-run nonprofit) literally saved my life: my doctor 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. The point is not that doctors 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.”
—u/lizlemonista
Boy_anupong / Getty Images
13.“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 agonizingly painful. Something like 1 in 10 women have it. And apparently, it’s still not worth doing research into.”
—u/LegalFox9
“My spouse is a gynecologist surgeon. She had a patient with endometriosis in her lungs that caused life-threatening pulmonary issues.”
—u/i_am_voldemort
“I do medical deep dives regularly as a morbidly curious freak and endometriosis is one of the scariest things I have ever seen. It can grow anywhere. People have had it in their brain and on their skin. And it can go through menses. Awful, scary, terrifying stuff.”
—u/CannibalAnn
Paul Biris / Getty Images
14.“Pregnancy can just turn on diseases that you may have never had before.”
A doctor performs an ultrasound on a pregnant woman lying on a hospital bed, checking the health of her unborn baby
Dentist performing a dental procedure on a patient in a clinic setting, viewed from above
Halfpoint Images / Getty Images, Fly View Productions / Getty Images
“I developed a thyroid disease and an autoimmune disease during my first pregnancy. It’s been great.”
—u/PublicProfanities
“It can also make your eyesight worse, cause cavities and loose teeth, cause or exacerbate bone loss/osteoporosis, make moles or angiomas grow or appear, make subsequent periods heavier, temporarily reduce grey matter in the brain, cause pelvic organ prolapse, cause skeletal structure changes, cause abdominal muscle separation, new-onset diabetes (usually from gestational diabetes), and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s.
The number of side effects, complications, and possible permanent effects of pregnancy would fill a book, yet people still try to pretend it’s a perfectly normal and harmless process and women are just complaining.
—u/Inwint
15.“There are certain conditions where your bowel can leak into your stomach and you vomit shit.”
Person in a white shirt and striped tie, looking slightly puzzled or skeptical, stands indoors with a painting in the background
Person looking to the side with a neutral expression, wearing a collared shirt and striped tie
NBC / Via giphy.com
“It’s called feculent vomiting.”
—u/EitherChannel4874
16.Your gut bacteria plays a big part in your overall wellness and even affects your mental health. Your depression may or may not be in some part caused by lacking a certain bacteria or the presence of another.”
—u/nsmith0723
“Fecal transplants have transmitted clinical depression from donor to recipient.”
—u/garrettj100
17.Prion diseases, wherein basically a protein, which is the basic building block for your body, goes rogue.
“This leads to a chain reaction where other proteins around it are misshaped and basic body functions break down. When it attacks the brain it causes irreversible brain damage and death. There’s no way to target a rogue protein. In diseases like Mad Cow Disease it’s acquired by consuming meat, but it can also just happen randomly.”
—u/Junior_Sginificance9
18.“Roughly half of the world’s population is iron deficient, of whom about half have iron deficiency anemia.”
“Iron affects literally every part of your body, from how cold your feet are to whether you exhibit symptoms of bipolar disorder. Seriously consider looking into it if you have any unexplained symptoms.”
—u/314159265358979326
Owen Franken / Getty Images
19.“If you have a rib removed (say for surgery), the younger you are, the more likely that rib is to grow back.”
X-ray image of a human chest showing ribs, spine, and lungs
A person in a checked coat and tie looks forward
Jose A. Bernat Bacete / Getty Images, ABC / Via giphy.com
—u/kiwidale
20.“The female fetus has developed every egg they will ever ovulate before they are born.”
21.“If you have an allogeneic bone marrow transplant, your blood type will change to the donor’s, and your bone marrow and blood will contain the donor’s DNA.”
“For example, if you are a male and your donor is a female and you do a blood DNA test your results will show that you are a female. Since the rest of your cellular structure is your own, a DNA mouth swab test would show you are a male. This is known as chimerism.”
—u/dadamax
Channel 4, BBC Two / Via giphy.com
22.“There are a million nerve fibers that form the optic nerve in each eye.”
23.“Erectile dysfunction can be a precursor to heart disease. The penile arteries are only slightly smaller than the coronary arteries; once they start blocking up, causing ED, the coronaries are soon to follow. (Approximately two years.)”
24.“A tumor can contain hair and/or teeth.”
—u/spicytotino
“I had a cyst removed that had been growing on my ovary: I was told it had hair, teeth, and brain matter. I called it my cyst-er.”
—u/coors1977
“It’s called a teratoma.”
—u/RoutineOther7887
Juan Gaertner / Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF
25.“Fat is not inert. One pound of fat has about five miles of blood vessels to support it. That’s a lot of an extra load on our hearts.”
—u/jocosely_living
26.“All mammals, except for manatees and sloths, have seven cervical vertebrae. Giraffes have the same as humans, they’re just huge.”
27.“You can taste salt when given a saline IV because it diffuses out of the blood in your lungs.”
—u/suddenspiderarmy
28.“Humans are naturally covered in cool stripes, mostly across the back. They are unique to each human. They are not visible under our visual spectrum, but certain other animals can see them. It’s a shame we can’t, because I think they look awesome.”
29.“Not moving for long periods of time can increase your chance of blood clots, especially as you get older.”
—u/Solelbis
30.And finally: “What makes measles such a dangerous disease is that it causes a sort of amnesia of the immune system that can last as long as a year or two.”
Animated character holding a small ornate object, wearing a strapless evening gown and elegant earrings, looking contemplative
Animated woman holds an open music box, looking at it thoughtfully, with elegant earrings and an updo hairstyle
20th Century Studios, FilmFlex / Via youtube.com
—u/wilderlowerwolves
…Terrifying. Feel free to vent alllll your feelings about these down in the comments below. Or, you can leave your own wild health facts! I love-hate to read them.
