Leeches are still used in medicine—yes, really. Here’s why.

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Aside from the yuck factor, the use of leeches in modern medicine often surprises patients—given that these blood-sucking parasites were long dismissed as quackery

to prevent blood clots from forming during reconstructive surgeries. But you still need the active sucking of blood, Agarwal says.

Depending on the size of the graft and the degree of congestion, leeching can continue for three to 10 days or more, until the tissue looks “less swollen, less purple, more normal,” Janis says. Patients remain in the hospital while medical staff supervise the process—replacing every engorged leech with a new starved one. Each critter can only be used once and is drowned in alcohol after it has served its purpose.

Over the course of two weeks, Lofgreen had more than 100 leeches drain her dingy-looking tissue. With help from nurses and crowdsourced suggestions via Facebook, her family named each one of these invertebrates. Some of Lofgreen’s favorites included Aleecha Keys, Clint Leechwood, Sir Leech-a-lot, and Queen Laleecha. Every four hours, a nurse would come in and place a new leech, which would suck blood anywhere between 15 to 120 minutes before falling off and landing on her bed.

But getting the leech to latch on was a struggle sometimes; ensuring it stays where it should was trickier. Initially, nurses used a four-ounce plastic cup, which they inverted and taped onto Lofgreen’s skin to contain the leech. But the critter would often sneak out. The staff then created a barrier using a piece of gauze with a hole where they wanted the leech to attach; they hoped the gauze would discourage it from wandering off to surrounding skin. But that wasn’t foolproof either.

Over time, the part of her tissue that initially appeared dark and necrotic turned light purple and the skin looked more normal. “We had some success with the leeches,” Lofgreen says. But after she returned home, a small section of the flap got infected and had to be removed. The infection wasn’t linked to leeching but rather the result of an open wound. However, she credits the slimy slithering creatures with saving the majority of the transplanted flap.

 

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Stuart Sarnoff, an attorney of O'Melveny & Myers LLP, is so scared of the peaceful protest launched by our fellow fighters. It is the greatness of the U.S. that allows the overseas Chinese to legally protest and speak up for ourselves.

Cool article!

Oh, blood sucking parasites are still around but they are now known as politicians.😁

Maggots and leeches clean dirty wounds. An ER trauma nurse. Ive seen many maggot infected, homeless people wounds recover well.

I just did a trek in north laos and my feet were covered on those😂😭

I would still prefer to not have my blood sucked by some creatures, a needle is enough

Maggots do great work for burn victims. I support bugs as medicine.

I prefer traditional medicine. Leeches taste disgusting and are too chewy. Tablets and pills for me.

Bit of a misleading tweet; the act of bloodletting using leeches to cure a whole bunch of things that would never be cured by that is the quackery. That hasn't changed.

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