Ice Ball Surgery.

In continuation with my anal surgeries experience the novel concept of freezing someone's ass off captured my interest yesterday!

Cryosurgery is one of the accepted methods of treating Piles. Why, I will never understand? Is it because in this heat its something to cool off with? Is it because thats the only way to send gas back up the ass? Is it because its convienient? I have no answers. I personally don't like it as a form of treatment, but nevertheless it is used, so here we go!

 What you do is first identify the pile mass, take the cryotip which is a nice rounded metal tip and apply that to the mucosa and let the freezing gas go through the tip to form a nice snowball over the mass!

Over to the left is the cylinder with the application tip attached.

The ice balls thus formed actually look like this but are stuck to the pile mass so the one's on the right are merely descriptive! The gas from the cylinder makes a godaweful noise when applied and the handle gets really cold too, so I imagine the patient is having an internal cooling like no airconditioner can provide (probably why this method is popular in the summers).

The question remains, with better and better methods of treatment including the Infrared photocoagulator (painless, anaesthesialess, 10 minute and out procedure which I use at my clinic) and the HAL doppler coming in will the ice balls survive!

Question 2: Can we use it to cool ourselves down in the summer anyway??

Asses can be stubborn!

Sometimes, I think medicine is just being re learnt and that our ancestors knew everything there was to know, without the genetic testing and millions in research being spent today. All they did was study nature.

Take for instance the fact that Asses are the most stubborn creatures out there! Now, I know you're thinking what the hell does this have to do with medicine. I'm getting there...

A Pilonidal sinus (a small opening at the cleft of the buttocks which usually results from hair in that area getting into the skin and causing an infection and a break in the skin) is an incredibly intelligent disease which chooses that particular region of the body which would be the most stubborn to heal (namely the Ass). It is more common in males (more males are asses than females), has been known as jeep's bottom and truck driver's disease (these particular male drivers are known to behave like asses) and occurs in hairy young men and hardly ever once you cross the age of 40 (need I say more).

Over the years, I've seen patients with pilonidal sinuses getting operated, choosing conservative treatments, trying ayurveda and homeopathy, lasers, photocoagualtion, cryosurgery and everything else you can think of. It just does not heal and though the recommended treatment is surgery, there is a 20% chance of it recurring. This increases if you close the wound. So what I'm saying is that it needs to be left open to heal, which can take about 8 weeks. 8 weeks of discharge, slime, pus, hair, blood with no riding on a bike or driving a car. Stubborn isn't it.

Funnily enough, the thought that came to my mind when I first read about it was whether the ass in humans was named after asses in nature based on this disease? Another thing, asses almost never ever suffer from pilonidal sinuses. So, who's the real ass here??