Is it possible to have three or four kidneys as an adult human?
I know a girl who has four. Or at least had at the age of 13. She’s still alive, but I’m not sure she’s got all of them.
If you’ve had a transplant it is. They generally don’t remove the non-functioning kidney(s) during the transplant procedure.
Other than that, I don’t know.
Oh, and only post your question once.
My girlfriend’s grandmother has four.
–Patch
A friend of mine has four. Selfish, isn’t she?
I never knew this was possible. Are the extra kidneys functional?
From a Sept. 16, 2003 LA Times article:
“As it turns out, a surprising number of us do lack a kidney — roughly 1 in 1,000, according to autopsies, medical dissections and one exhaustive 1989 study of 132,686 Taiwanese schoolchildren. And that is just the beginning. Many thousands are walking around with other oddball configurations: extra vertebrae, duplicated or oddly placed blood vessels, absent or multiple muscles, little supernumerary spleens, bladders shaped like hourglasses, even 12-lobed livers.”
Bonus trivia from the same article:
1 in 10,000 people have their internal organs in a mirror-image configuration.
Mel Gibson has a single horseshoe shaped kidney, a 1-in-500 oddity.
Oh yeah, and the woman sitting across from me right now has three kidneys.
As medical oddities go, extra kidneys aren’t that unusual, according to her doctor… But, man, was she surprised when he casually mentioned the extra organ.
Does this mean two hearts and two livers? Fascinating!
No, I think Malice means that the liver is on the left side as opposed to the right, the stomach faces the opposite direction, as does the heart, etc.
However, I had planned on posting: If nature had thought of giving us two kidneys (in case one gets injured), why not two of everything? You could blow off a heart attack because you have another like-new one. With two stomachs, you’d be able to digest your cud more effectively. Try four lungs! Smoke with impunity!
Anyone have any idea?
Heh, you jest, of course. The normal set of organs, just reversed – heart on the right side, for example.
I just heard about someone I know last week who has their heart on the right, er, wrong, side. The not-left side. Not because all the organs are configured like a mirror, but because this person is apparently missing a right pulminary artery. That has made the right lung pretty useless and the left lung enlarged to compensate. That forced the heart to move over to the right.
I have several dozen kidneys. They’re in Tupperware containers in my basement fridge, along with Polaroids of the donors’ weeping faces taken moments before organ extraction.
Mmm, pie.
I keep thinking that one day I’ll read something like the above on the Dope and find out later on the evening news that the poster wasn’t kidding - it was meant literally.:eek:
So, if someone has an extra kidney, does it function the same as the others? Or, is it a backup plan? lol How exactly does it work when a person has an extra organ?
A gentleman came in for a work up to be a kidney donor for his brother. He (and we) were surprised when it was discovered that he had three kidneys–one normal size, one about 2/3rd size, one about half size. They were all functional.
I’ve seen several instances of extra lumbar vertebrae.
I’ve only seen one instance of situs inversus (where the heart appears on the right side rather than the left). Unfortunately, it was a newborn who had many other problems as well.
So which one did he give his brother?
How would you find out about this? Would part of a basic medical check find this out? Does this seriously affect donations? I mean… I like having two (at least, I’m assuming I’ve not got 0 or 1 or 8), but if I found out I had a few to spare, I think I’d be willing to share the wealth.