I would think the body would heal when it gets warm or medical technology is advanced enough to allow some healing.
In: Biology
Severe frostbite, the affected area is already dead. You can’t heal what’s dead.
That flesh is already going to decay and fall off, amputation let’s you break off the dead flesh at a healthy area that can heal over to prevent infection.
Leaving the dead flesh on there is just giving a place for bacteria to grow
Dead tissue is dead tissue, there’s no healing it. Your body can remove small bits of dead stuff (does it every day with dead cells) but leaving dead muscles, blood vessels and connective tissue attached would cause it start decomposing, and expose the living tissue to bacteria, fungi and/or macro necrophages.
When frostbite is especially bad it will cause some of your flesh to start necrotizing. Which means your flesh and cells have died and are now starting to rot. There isn’t a cure for this, and if you dont amputate it then it’ll start to spread and eventually you’ll die of sepsis from all the rotten material entering your blood stream.
The FDA has just approved the first medication to treat severe frostbite! https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-medication-treat-severe-frostbite
In extreme cold, the human body tries to retain as much heat as possible, and therefore as much blood flow as possible to the vital organs. This means that blood circulation is greatly reduced in the small extremities such as the feet, hands, nose and ears.
The feet, hands and nose cool down more quickly than the rest of the body because they are no longer warmed by blood circulation.
If the drop in temperature continues, the blood and flesh will freeze.
Freezing is very destructive and there is no more oxygen reaching these tissues. After a certain period, the parts that have frozen are dead. There’s nothing we can do about it.
If nothing is done to thaw them out, dead tissue will start circulating in the bloodstream.
This risks generating a generalised infection, sepsis, which is fatal. The only solution is amputation.
Water expands when it freezes. Your cells are primarily water. When they freeze they are destroyed… all of them. It’s all dead.
Healing a wound comes from new cells dividing to replace damage cells. In frostbite those calls are all destroyed.
If you don’t amputate it (with some exceptions) it will get infected. Ends of fingers/toes will often auto-amputate so if the damage is limited to those tissue it might be left alone to keep as much tissue as possible versus guessing where the finger will heal and maybe taking too much
Because the frost-bitten tissue is literally dead. The black tissue has no blood flow to it and it has changed colors because it’s composing. There is no healing or regenerating to be done. The blackened tissue is just dead rotting meat and if you don’t remove it quickly, the bacteria thats eating that flesh will get into the persons bloodstream and cause sepsis.
Have you ever had something that got badly freezer burned? There is no way to revitalize it. That is what you get with severe frost bite. All you can do is cut away the bad parts.
Let me give this a go since everyone is giving my so many complex answers like we teenagers in here:
When your arm freezes it can die. Once your arm dies it’s forever and the we have to cut it off or else the baddies get into your blood.
It’s sometimes the right thing to do, but many cases of frostbite have been made worse by inexperienced surgeons amputating too much and too early. A limb that looks that bad for other reasons absolutely does need amputation, but some dead looking tissue may recover with frostbite. Delay amputation where possible and seek the advice of a surgeon with actual frostbite expertise, not just your local vascular surgeon. More info here
http://christopherimray.co.uk/highaltitudemedicine/frostbite.htm
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