Creepy Surgeons

There is a type of surgeons who do not have hands, legs, but they can be considered as a professional especially in the field of reconstructive surgery.

With them around, patients' reconstructive surgeries will have higher chances of success, and time taken for the wound to heal will also be much faster.

However, even though the surgeons has such a good reputation in this area, many patients do not like to be treated by them.

This is because, the surgeons are flesh-craving and uses their mouth to treat patients!

The use of leeches to cure illnesses took place more than 2500 years ago in Egypt, where the Egyptians used leeches to drain "impure blood" from the body to cure many kind of illnesses. Nowadays, leeches are still widely used in post surgical treatments. The components in the saliva of the leeches have quite a number of therapeutic values, the saliva can relieve venous congestion (accumulation of blood abnormally) and improve blood flow to the compromised free tissue flaps.

The leeches' saliva contains anticoagulants that prevent blood from clotting. After a full meal of blood, the leech will detach itself from the patient, the anticoagulants left behind will still be effective for up to several hours. As a result, blood will continue to ooze out of the wounds.

Source: Click Here

This may sound scary, but this is essential to prevent venous congestion and encourage re-establishment of blood flow through the tissues after reconstructive surgery. If venous congestion occurs, and blood does not flow through the replanted tissue, the reconstructive surgery is deem to fail. Without proper blood flow, the replanted tissue is unable to get oxygen supply, it will turn black and become useless.

During leech therapy, leeches ensure constant blood flow in the areas, new veins will extend into the reconstructed part from the healthy tissue and promote re-establishment of adequate blood drainage.

However, there are still some adverse effects in leech therapy.

• Patients may experience local pain during the therapy. As the anesthetic effect of the leech saliva may take a while to occur, the initial biting may trigger pain.
• Local itching will happen after the bite.
• Infection may take place if the leeches are not properly sterilised.

Leech therapy is an effective post surgical treatment, though it has its shortcomings, its advantages still shouldn't be overlooked.

Blood Suckers

First glance at the words "Blood Sucker", many will start to think of vampires or mosquitoes. BUT, I am not going to talk about either of them. The two extreme creatures that I am going to talk about, not only do they have disgusting appearances but are also blood-thirsty creatures.

They are the Fleas, and the Ticks.

Some facts about Fleas

Larva of a Flea. Source: Click Here

• Flea larva may live on the carpets, or any fabric surfaces.
• The flea larva actually feeds on the poop of an adult flea besides dead skin debris of animals.
Eventually, it will spin itself into a cocoon, and can stay inside for more than a year waiting for a host to arrive.
• Flea can jump 150 times its body length, which is about 240m high for a human being of 1.6m! In order to attach itself onto its host.
• The flea has a very poor eyesight, it can only sense its hosts through movement and concentration of carbon dioxide.

• It can drink blood of up to 15 times its body weight. In conversion, it is approximately 750kg of liquid consumed by a person with 50kg body weight!
  
• The poops it produces are rich in nutrients for larvae to grow.
• One of the best way to get rid of fleas, is the use of vacuum cleaner.

Some facts about Ticks

• A tick is an eight-legged bug, a relative to spiders.
• Very similar to fleas, a tick tracks its host by following the trail of carbon dioxide released by the hosts.
• A tick locates the blood vessels closest to the skin surface of its host, at which it will bite and start leeching for blood.
• The horrifying fact is that, a tick can drink up to a maximum of 600 times of its body weight of blood! (which is 30,000kg of fluid for a 50kg-person)

A female tick with eggs. Source: Click Here

• Once latched on a host, a tick may be 'glued' onto the host and suck blood for up to a few days. Until its body weight increases about several hundreds times its original weight!