A massive backup of blood

What would happen if one’s heart started pumping backwards?

The same thing that’s going to happen to this thread when the Moderator reads it.

What makes you say that?

assuming it to be a possibility, i would say nothing.

the function is to move blood. blood is the medium that carries the oxygen. the cells won’t care if its coming from the right or the left. as long as it gets it.

however, if nothing changed physiologically (the vessels stay in it’s current arrangement), it’d be a problem. the veins would recieve high pressure blood. venous walls are much thinner than arterial walls. wall’s may break down.

m 2 c

peppy

Ah, but wait! One side of the human heart draws oxygenated blood from the lungs. There would be an insufficient number of vessels on the other side to carry an appropriate volume of oxygenated blood from the lungs to the rest of your body. Really, though, that would be the least of your worries. The human heart is equipped with valves. Blow those puppies out backwards, and you’re done. Game over. You’ll never last long enough to determine what would happen after that.

Another design problem with the veins: the leg veins have little valves designed to prevent backflow. (When they fail, one gets varacose veins.) They probably wouldn’t withstand the force of blood pressure long, and would either flip the other way, tear, or rupture the vein.

The veins are also within muscles to utilize them in squeezing blood along back to the heart. Arteries are closer to the bones, so they wouldn’t get any boost from the muscles. This would probably increase blood pressure since it wouldn’t flow back to the heart as easily.

Delivering drugs via IV/needles or donating blood would be complicated by entering pressureized vessels.

At this time, I would like to point out that anyone who suspects that his or her heart has begun to pump blood in the reverse of its normal direction of flow should immediately turn off his or her computer and seek the attention of a trained medical professional. We the Teeming Millions can offer wild speculation and diagnoses, but we are powerless to treat life threatening medical conditions.

:wink:

In some sense, your heart pumps backwards when a valve blows inside of it. Such a valve failure (mitral regurgitation), if sudden, will lead to severe pulmonary edema - a life threatening condition where the lungs fill up with fluid instead of oxygen.