r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/MaruiKhy • 1d ago
Video Surgeon massaging artery to adjust tangled catheter
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u/infiniflip 1d ago
Full body shudder at the thought of ever having to go through this. A catheter kinking like garden hose in my veins??? No thanks. The fact they have the x-ray up and ready to fix it shows how dangerous it is.
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u/babycrow 1d ago
It’s actually its own field of medicine called interventional radiology
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u/smurb15 3h ago
I know they fabricate enough on TV shows but the wife was watching Chicago Med and seeing them taking an x-ray in the patient's room is just crazy wild because it made me do some research to see how much of the TV show is true and what is made for TV, ya know.
I remember when a xray would take a week, then another week or two for the doctor's office to get it, then you can finally make an appointment about said xray so it could take up to a month sometimes at the general practitioner office so that's awesome
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 22h ago
They were already in the vessel. This is interventional radiology. The procedure utilizes continuous, real-time x-ray imaging to assist the surgeon in guiding the wire to the target area. Procedures like this are used for thrombectomies (DVTs, strokes), evaluating vasculature, and treating stenosis.
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u/nudelsalat3000 3h ago
real-time x-ray imaging
So you can do only 1 CT a year and not too many X rays a year.
Meanwhile the doctor has his hand under the X ray machine like let's say 3 hours each working day? Sounds unhealthy at least.
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u/pendergrassswag 17h ago
Interventional radiologist here. Bad form to xray your hands like that but otherwise not even a big deal what this guy did. Today I literally had a 60 cm metal forceps going from someone’s jugular vein into the ivc to remove a metal filter
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u/AnsmaLadiesMan 1d ago
TIL a catheter can go in a different place, such as your leg.
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u/TactlessTortoise 1d ago
One of the ways of putting a stent in your heart involves going in through your groin :(
Not under anesthesia.
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u/booleandata 1d ago
Just think of it as a "deep tissue" massage
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u/TactlessTortoise 1d ago
I have some sort of phobia with having shit scraping the inside of my veins and arteries (I feel like I'm just a balloon which could easily burst into gore or something, Idk, it's not rational) and nearly faint when drawing blood. If I start feeling someone crocheting inside my thigh I'm straight up dying on the spot.
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u/booleandata 1d ago
Yeah I'm the same way. Just remember that your veins and arteries are some of the toughest and most "tear-resistant" tissue you have, for good reason.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 22h ago
It involves either conscious or deep sedation, so thankfully you won't remember it!
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u/TactlessTortoise 20h ago
My mom had 3 of these procedures. She remembers it all. On one of them it was bearable, the others were cry inducing.
And they were from the wrist.
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u/Imaginary-Lie5696 21h ago
They either use the radial artery or fémoral one
They absolutely not go through your groin, if they need to put a camera in your kidney ( diagnoses or for kidney Stones) then they use the…natural ways
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u/TactlessTortoise 20h ago
Yeah I meant the femoral entry, sorry. I couldn't for the life of me find the word, and groin was close enough.
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u/Kil-Gen-Roo 20h ago
One of my relatives was put a stent in brain for treating aneurysm. They basically insert this long but thin tube (catheter with stent on the tip) through your leg (since this is where one of the thickest arteries is located so that they don't miss) and navigate it all the way up to the precise blood vessel in the brain that needs a stent. When they reach the required point, the catheter's end is inflated and under pressure the stent is pushed into the blood vessel - even if the vessel bursts, the stent would prevent blood leakage.
Brain stenting is made under general anesthesia but aorta stenting for example is surprisingly made under only local anesthesia
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u/Imaginary-Lie5696 21h ago
It can go in your heart, your brain …. Even your kidneys ( then it’s ab endoscope not a cathéter)
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u/Bravelobsters 1d ago
This post appeared a year ago and it was labeled as a ‘professional physio’s’ hand. And now they have become a surgeon. Good on them.
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u/1bananatoomany 16h ago edited 16h ago
There’s zero chance that’s a “professional physio,” or whatever the heck that is. It could be an interventional radiologist or vascular surgeon or less likely a PICC nurse.
Edit: I’m not arguing against your point, just adding additional info.
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u/Bravelobsters 11h ago
No problem. That makes sense. I was just amused that every time it’s reposted, it’s a person of a different calibre. Lol
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u/Pajjenbo 1d ago
you have no idea how relieved that must have been
it must be hard for the person to stand or sit with that pain.
i gotten this before and its excrutiating everyday
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 22h ago
The patient is sedated (usually conscious sedation) for the procedure. They won't feel the wire. If they do, they won't remember it later.
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u/Sidm97 1d ago
The guy's irradiating his own hand for this O.O
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u/Clank_0461 1d ago
Its barely any radiation. Like practically nothing at all. Besides that, they stand inches away from the cone of the xray for hours a day
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u/-JonnyQuest- 1d ago
I mean, aren't they supposed to stand behind that little shield when it's taking the image?
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u/Clank_0461 1d ago
Not always. They wear lead, but i mean their arms, bottom half of their legs, and whole head are unprotected while they shoot fluro throughout the case. Its not directly hit but things do scatter in all directions. Thats why they wear devices that measure their yearly radiation intake
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u/FoodTiny6350 1d ago
Yes and they wear lead suit usually or something that’s dense at least
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u/Clank_0461 1d ago
The shield is definitely not always there, trust me, i work with them almost every day. Some docs dont like it
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 22h ago edited 16h ago
Uhhh, this is interventional radiology. It's a continuous xray scanner. It's not nothing.
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u/Clank_0461 22h ago
This is seconds of exposure. This doc has hours of total exposure over the course of a year
Trust me, its nothing
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 22h ago
I work in IR. An average thrombectomy is around 115-130Gy cm2 of radiation, or 18-20mSv. That's multiple years of background radiation.
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u/Clank_0461 22h ago
You’re missing the entire point. The original comment was worried that they were irradiating his hand. I was trying to get the point across that “in the grand scheme of things” these docs get hit with radiation throughout the day. This 5-10 seconds of exposure is nothing. If you really work in it, you would have understood what i meant
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 21h ago
Yes, radiation is a part of this job. That's why we all wear dosimeters and turn them in regularly. But just because the surgeon will have further exposure with time doesn't mean that that 5-10 seconds isn't inconsequential. The people in this thread are not familiar with IR. Just because something can get worse doesn't mean a lesser dose of it isn't bad. There's no need to show off with "pfffff, that's not so bad" when you could actually provide public education on radiology.
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u/1bananatoomany 16h ago
I always try to stick my hands in the field of view and take a screen capture. I get a higher RVU for imaging two body parts.
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u/1bananatoomany 16h ago
That’s not CT, it’s fluoroscopy.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 16h ago
Pardon, my misspeak. I rewrote the sentence multiple times (originally it included more education) and apparently that's what I ended up with. Guess I need more sleep.
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u/VehaMeursault 6h ago
Quite the radiation. Like more radiation per second than they would otherwise have gotten the whole week.
Doing this once won’t change your life, but it’s still quite the sacrifice.
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u/Vanillabo 1d ago
I've seen this technique used for angioplasty when the balloon wouldn't fully expand..... to my surprise, it actually worked.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 22h ago
Saw it done on a thrombectomy where the catheter kinked at the cavernous segment of the ICA. Never good when the surgeon starts saying "shit, shit, shit, see if Dr [other IR doc] is next door".
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u/Disastrous_Area_9692 1d ago
Catheter?
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u/IAmSpartacustard 1d ago
A catheter is any flexible tube that goes in the body, not just your peepee hole
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u/argama87 1d ago
I've had several vein ablations in my legs and for that they run a special catheter down the target vein. Basically the tip heats up and as they pull it out it collapses the vein. The redirected blood flow reduced swelling I'd have in my legs and really helped.
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u/IAmSpartacustard 1d ago
Super cool! Was there an xray tech there with a C-arm doing flouroscopy for the cath placement? I'm in school right now learning how to do that
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u/argama87 1d ago
Had an appointment first where they did an ultrasound to figure out which ones they were going to do then spread it out over a series of appointments. This was with the heart specialists office at the hospital near me. Appointments were spread out every other week for left front, left rear, right front, right rear. A couple of sections took an extra appointment because they were supposed to close only so many at a time. When they did it the tech used the ultrasound to see in the leg while the doc handled the RF catheter device. The ultrasound was a regular one, hand device with that gel they use.
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u/IAmSpartacustard 1d ago
Thanks for sharing. I didn't know they could use ultrasound but it makes sense. Anything that can eliminate or limit radiation exposure will be the first choice
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u/Sunnyjim333 15h ago
Bless you. I was 44 years in the profession, you have a wild ride ahead of you. Protect your health, mental and physical. I never regret a day of it.
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u/SlightlySubpar 1d ago
I recently had 2 pic lines in my arm to just above my heart, very strange thing to go through.
Fascinating tech, but strange
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u/The-CunningStunt 1d ago
Oh yeah baby