Well, perhaps a bit of clarification will help. The term surgical clamps is a medical term, these are not actually clamps as most think they would be given the name. Actually they are like VERY small staples. When a radiologist sees them on an x-ray he/she will refer to them as clamps. They are almost always used in surgery when looking pretty doesn't matter and timeliness is of value (ie; abdominal, pelvic, heart surgeries). It is actually in the best interest of the patient as there is no reaction to them being there for life, and if properly placed, completely "clamps" (compresses) off blood vessels so they do not ooze. And we all know what oozing blood vessels can do in the abdomen.
I have never heard of them causing problems. They are made of surgical steel, don't rust or react to anything in the body, don't go anywhere except where they are placed, and are the standard of care. For a person to have untoward results the body's immune system has to recognize whatever it is as foreign. These things are not immunogenic (don't cause an immune response) that I have ever heard of, and so in and of themselves don't cause any problems. The real problem lies in the surgery itself, the surgical technique, the blood left behind, the amount of time the tissues are exposed to air/drying out, the amount of manipulation of tissue/organs, CO2 exposure, the body's own response to all of this, etc - that cause the problems. I personally have a small arsenal of clamps in me....
Hope this helps a bit. Take care, Judy On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 08:42 PM, Sally Grigg wrote:
> Dear Judy, I believe you when you say that it is not uncommon to leave
> metal clamps in an abdomen. However, to those of us not in the medical
> profession, this seems shocking. Don't they cause problems? How can
> you
> leave a foreign object made out of metal in a person's abdomen and
> expect no untoward results? With kindest regards, Sally Grigg
>
> At Thu, 5 Jun 2003, Judy Kemp wrote:
>>
>> It is not uncommon to have surgical clamps left in place, in fact, it
>> is protocol (and very very common) to leave them in. It is faster in
>> the OR to use surgical clamps as opposed to suture, the main
>> difference
>> being you can see the clamps (as they are metal) on scans as opposed
>> to
>> suture that does not show up. It is reasonable to think you have your
>> pain on that side not because you have clamps there, but because that
>> is where you were operated on and therefore that is where you have
>> adhesions. Take care, judy
>> On Thursday, June 5, 2003, at 11:53 AM, Teri wrote:
>>
>>> I went about a week ago for a CT scan because I'm still having pain
>>> even
>>> after two surgeries for the adhesions in my pelvic area and I was
>>> reading the radiologist report that stated there were surgical clamps
>>> present. I was just wondering if this is normal, since it's the
>>> side I
>>> hurt on?
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help!
>>> Teri
>>>
>>> http://www.adhesions.org/forums/listcmds.htm
>>>
>
> http://www.adhesions.org/forums/listcmds.htm
>