The son of my boss was born with a rare condition called Hirschprung’s disease. It’s pretty awful and I would never want to go through the litany of painful surgeries that he has. But I did learn something potentially cool about him the other day that my roommate and I have both decided might be superior to eating food (something that “consumes” way too much of our time). He has an IV embedded in his leg that gives him almost all of the nutrition he needs, and it can be stuffed with more nutrition through a small hole when it runs out.
Are there any examples of people who have voluntarily undergone this procedure? Any large downsides I’m not seeing? I’m also interested in whether the stopping of eating itself is likely to extend your life. The digestive process is hard on your body, isn’t it?
Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) is not something to be done long-term except for the most dire need. It’s usually done thru a central venous catheter but using the intra-osseous approach is apparently becoming more common.
It’s fraught with risks of many complications, including bone infarcts, vascular thrombosis, infection, sepsis, and death.
No sane person would opt for this if they had a working digestive system. Normal digestion is not hard. TPN is.
Even in the short term TPN can be dangerous. The risk of infection is very high. The solution has to be mixed in a sterile environment, like a negative pressure hood. It has to be given through a deep line, which, if accidently disconnected could cause life threatening blood loss.
The intraosseous approach is successful only in children, since the bone shafts in adults no longer have marrow that provides cardiovascular access.
My father was on TPN on and off for months in the hospital. We used to call the stuff “liquid gold” because the hospital charged over $1,000 a bag.
It was not pleasant. It keeps you alive, but just barely. The central venous lines they administer it through go directly into the heart, and there’s a constant risk of life-threatening infection.
Also, contrary to what the OP surmises, it’s the lack of digesting foods that’s hard on the GI tract and organs. My father had a tube going down his nose into his stomach that constantly sucked out secretions while he was on it. Trust me, nobody does this voluntarily. You only undergo this if the alternative is dying.
I’m sorry. I thought jokes, even bad ones, were allowed in GQ after the question was answered. I don’t believe myself to have a habit of spamming GQ with nonsense, and franky I’m a little offended that you have singled me out for this.
I wasn’t mocking the son’s diagnosis, I was making a silly comment in what I thought was in line with a silly and already-answered OP. To me, a disease/syndrome called ‘toxic megacolon’ elicits the giggles. Whatever. I’ll stop hijacking this thread now.
