Kidney stone procedure "has the potential to be game changing"
komonews.com
komonews.com
Wait, what? Everything else was worked out, but NASA just went "hold on, we can't go to Mars just yet until we figure out what to do if an astronaut gets kidney stones on the way"?
Did the writer just throw this in to make the procedure seem more hip and exciting?
> Because space travel makes astronauts prone to kidney stones due, in part to bone demineralization from weightlessness, they are at increased risk. The NASA evidence base and publications note that astronauts have had more than 30 instances of kidney stones within two years of space travel. Medical assistance is a formidable challenge for those orbiting this planet or heading to other solar system destinations.
https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/keeping-kidney-stones-bay-durin...
Personally, I don't even like roller coasters.. I'd probably take a kidney stone to avoid having to go to space
I'm sure I'll end up there sooner or later though, that's where all the jobs are going to be
At any rate, hydronephrosis is the real thing to fear in most cases.
I know smaller craft can’t do this but we can always do a long tether with a counterweight.
(My personal pet idea is to go for super low gravity like .05G to start out to simplify things. You still get to walk around, go to the bathroom, spill liquids and clean up, cook, etc. )
This podcast covers a lot of the status on international studies for artificial gravity.
"Now we did try to fly a centrifuge on station around 2009 or 2010. And again, it was the same international community and we put together an international proposal to do it on station. And it turns out after a lot of hemming and hawing and the U.S. was going to provide the crew and the integration, the Japanese were going to fly it and the Europeans were going to pay for the device and have it built, and flight certified. It turns out that the station really isn’t designed for that much vibration. So instead of just having a person laying there, we were going to have a person with a cycle ergometer that would spin and do the ergometer. And that much vibration was bad for the station and it was decided that you would have to have a very expensive vibration isolation system that the Europeans weren’t willing to pay for to be able to do it. So, we kind of lost the possibility of doing human centrifuge work on station at this time."
So it looks like this is the current issue, and there is a large amount of work going into the physiological side of research to find out exactly what amounts and methods of artificial gravity achieve desired results.
For a 50m radius don't you need about 10 RPM (rotation once every 6 seconds!)? That's actually right at the maximum dimension of the ISS, no?
And you're going to feel the gravity differential if you aren't exactly on the rim.
We'd have to get significantly better at building much bigger space structures before rotating them will be even remotely feasible.
What does this mean? Surely the average astronaut doesn't pass 30 kidney stones every two years, that's more than one a month. So it's either over a specific two year period (for every astronaut in space at the time, probably a lot?) or it's for a specific number of astronauts. Confusing sentence.
Given that astronauts are exceptionally physically fit individuals to start with, at least at the time of their space missions, this is probably quite significant evidence that space flight causes kidney stones.
decades*
[1] https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/Risks/risk.aspx?i=81
If you look at the medical risk matrix it puts the likelihood between 60% - 80% and consequence at "loss time injury or illness per OSHA criteria" On a score of 1 (least risky) to 25 (most risky), a 4x4 scores 22.
Now to your point about "guaranteeing" they would still go, they are allowed to waive these risks through a formal process. It tends to make managers squeamish though, because nobody wants to be the person who's signature is attached to a known risk that eventually causes a mishap.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/s3001_guidel...
I don't think you even get free-return on most mars missions like you do with moon missions.
Only required for doctors staying over winter. Neat
"NASA does not mandate astronauts to undergo an appendectomy before embarking on a mission. This decision stems from the understanding that the risks associated with surgery frequently outweigh the potential benefits."
https://www.lunarsail.com/do-astronauts-have-their-appendix-...
It was so painful it resulted in a blackout as it was moving through my innards and getting to my bladder. Anything to save myself from that non-invasively would be welcome. Thankfully, they have not returned as I think I know what triggers them for me.
The first was the worst because you don't know what it is. Subsequent stones didn't seem to be as bad, since I knew I was going to survive.
The emerg doc told me that some ladies say the pain worse than childbirth.
That does not mean the later ones were less painful, but knowing what to expect, recognizing the symptoms early, and getting mentally ready go a long way. A well stocked medical cabinet with potent pain killers is a must, and I don't take long trips without them either.
Unfortunately, not all will pass naturally, depending on size and shape, so I'm looking forward to having this option available when needed.
> Ultrasonic propulsion is then used to move the stone fragments out, potentially giving patients relief in 10 minutes or less
(Edit)
"Fragmentation of Stones by Burst Wave Lithotripsy in the First 19 Humans" (2022) https://www.auajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1097/JU.0000000000002... gscholar citations: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=4452238185664707620...
Lithotripsy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithotripsy
EWST: Extracorporeal shockwave therapy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_shockwave_thera...
Could NIRS help with this targeted ultrasound procedure, too?
"Ultrasound-activated chemotherapy advances therapeutic potential in deep tumours" (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37885774#37885798 :
> NIRS Near-Infrared Spectroscopy does not require contrast FWIU?
> What about with realtime NIRS with an (inverse?) scattering matrix?
FWIU Openwater's technology portfolio includes targeted ultrasound with e.g. NIRS and LSI/LSCI: https://www.openwater.health/technology
One of their demo videos explains how inverting the scattering caused by the occluding body yields the mass-density at least (?). [Radio]Spectroscopy and quantum crystallography may have additional insight for tissue identification with low-cost NIRS sensor data?
Open fNIRS: https://openfnirs.org/
"Quantum light sees quantum sound: phonon/photon correlations" (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37793765 ; the photonic channel actually embeds the phononic field
It definitely can be sudden and debilitating but for most of my teenage years I had mistaken the pain for ‘sleeping wrong’. Sometimes when I would bend over and then stand it would feel like someone had stapled my back together at the bend and I had to rip it out. It hurt, but not anything like what I expected. A couple of years later I wound up having a few stones that had grown to larger than an inch.
If you have unusual and unexpected pain it’s definitely worth getting checked out. I didn’t have health insurance at the time and since the pain was intermittent I never suspected anything serious and just chalked it up to sleeping in a poor posture or maybe not getting enough exercise to be limber. It almost killed me!
After I passed stones I noticed something odd - no usual anxiety during takeoff and landing.
It was the stones all this time.
For a long time any significant g-forces would cause pain in the abdomen, which I unwittingly started ignoring at one point. But the fear of that pain stayed and I couldn't identify where it came from.
When I the plane started its ascent and I felt nothing, I connected the dots - especially that the passing and flying were just a few months apart.
I've unfortunately had several of them. Some passed with only mild discomfort. Others were excruciating... worst pain I've ever had.
Somewhere around here I have a glass bottle with my collection of stones.
"The ways we have to currently treat stones have some downsides," he said. "Most involve anesthesia."
In contrast to the shock waves used in ESWL, the BWL procedure uses "short harmonic bursts" of ultrasound energy, potentially enabling the stones to be broken up in a shorter procedure without the need for sedation or anesthesia. Pre-clinical studies supported the effectiveness of BWL in breaking experimental stones of varying size and composition, the study noted.
I’m not convinced it’s entirely painless as it’s still the same "crush and drive out via ultrasound" idea. Combine this with the fact that just existing is excruciating with stones, i don’t see a way around opioid analgesia. Additionally, the game hasn’t changed in the regard of the human pelvis being great at keeping out ultrasound, so if your stones are out of reach that way, you’re SOL.
https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/ultrasound-promises-relief-thos...
[Best read in Norm MacDonald's Burt Reynolds' voice]
I had a stone kicking around for 2 years that would cause pain off and on. Went to normal primary care, but they had no idea. We thought it was a gastro issue, since it felt like constipation (or so I thought). The problem was I was always fine when I actually went to see the doc. Until I finally went to the ER and they ordered a simple x-ray and found it :/
ESWL seemed like a scam because there was no redness on back tissue and not a single grain or fragment was passed. I wonder if they set the machine to a high enough power or if they skipped the actual procedure while I was anesthetized.
I'm wondering if BWL would be any better where ESWL fails.
In all seriousness the article doesn't have anything about general availability and cost, alas. How soon it can be offered at your typical hospital instead of vicodin and lots of water?