when you use a torniquette, what happens to the blood that is sent to the blocked artery as more blood is pumped in? Does it somehow get absorbed, does it flow back or does it just stagnates there?
In: 32
Blood doesn’t just cycle around your body like Hot Wheels on a Super-Charger track. All of your major arteries have smaller branch arteries off them, and even smaller capillaries off those. Then, finally, the blood is absorbed into whatever needs blood—muscles, bones, and other organs. And the reverse on the way out: blood leaves the organ via capillaries, which feed into small veins, which ultimately connect to large veins and back to your heart. It’s all a big mesh, really—but that’s hard to draw in diagrams, so we usually simplify them.
So when you cut off a pathway with a tourniquet (or amputation, or clotting, etc.) more blood takes other routes—like when there’s an accident on the highway and your parents have to get off and drive on the smaller city streets. You still get where you’re going, but on a different route than you might have otherwise. Same for blood cells!
Latest Answers