A list of organs you can live without

Factual Questions
1

I’m trying to compile a complete list of human organs that you can live without. I am willing to accept some quality of life detriments, but they can’t be too severe. For example, you can’t effectively live without kidneys for very long, even though there are ways to keep you alive through direct medical intervention for a while until a transplant is available. So, if you would need routine medical intervention or assistance without it, it doesn’t count for my list. If it just causes life to be a bit tougher, weakens your immune system, or whatever else, it is fine for my purposes. I’m also not interested in things like limbs, hair, etc… unless it’s actually classified medically as an organ, don’t bother mentioning it please.

Some organs I have thought of:

Gall Bladder
Spleen
pretty much every reproductive organ

Can you help add to my list?

2

Appendix
Stomach

3

colon

4

One of your lungs, one of your kidneys (or both if you undergo dialysis).

You can also remove the entire large intestine and most of the small intestine.

5

Eyes
Thyroid

6

Eyes
Ears (considering the inner ear as the organ of hearing)
Thyroid
Urinary bladder

7

Eyes - limit it to one of them if you don’t want to degrade the quality of life too much.

Ears - ditto

Nose

Tonsils/adenoids/etc.

Salivary glands (is that an organ? I think so, but I’m too lazy too look it up.)

Thyroid

Breasts

Esophagus

Intestines, large and/or small. (It’s not pleasant, but it’s possible to survive after removal of the total small intestine; you’ll need to be on TPN (food via IV) for the rest of your life.)

Bladder

Not sure if it counts, because you can’t live with the whole thing gone, but you can lose 1/2 your liver without much trouble.

Since you nixed kidneys, I take it “one lung” is cheating? :smiley:

8

You can live without a functioning pancreas, but it requires medical intervention to deal with the resulting diabetes and inability to properly digest food.

My abdomen is my cite.

9

Remember folks, routine medical intervention means you ‘can’t live without’ it for my purposes.

So if you can’t live without routine IV feeding or whatever after having all your intestines removed, that’s a no go.

And sorry, to the pancreas. :frowning: If you can’t live without injections or other medications, if you would literally die without them, then that doesn’t count for my list either.

Thanks for the help so far!

10

Any except Hammond B3’s or something with similar capabilities and sounds. Though Ray Manzarek did pretty well with his Vox Continental.

11

Spleen. My son had his removed as the result of a car accident. Without it, however, one becomes more susceptible to certain infections.

12

You can remove certain areas of your brain without sacrificing much.

(Many people wouldn’t even miss it.)

13

Thinking of trying to patent a new weight-loss system?

14

Hey! Speak for yourself.

15

Hmmm…how are we defining “medical intervention”? Do catheters count? What if you self-cath? If a cath counts, does an ostomy bag? Daily medications forever? Injected or oral? What about fairly frequent antibiotics due to lowered immunity and frequent infections? Vitamin Supplements?

You might have lost most of this thread, depending on how you answer.

16

All of those things count as not being able to live without, for my purposes. Even vitamin supplements. Medication is right out, as is cathing or anything like that.

17

Then I think you’re down to:

Eyes
Ears
Nose
Tonsils/adenoids
Gall bladder
Appendix
Parts of the brain
Parts of the liver
1 lung
1 kidney
A portion, but not the end of, the large intestine
A portion of, but not all of, the small intestine

18

Teeth.

Thymus.

19

So you cannot live without a spleen without taking medications or supplements?

20

Anyone heard of the story of the prison lifer who liked to donate an organ of his yearly? One retina, a kidney, skin for grafting, bone marrow, etc. The warden put a stop to it when he observed the lifer was slowly getting out.