What happens if Air is injected into Veins !

Have you ever witnessed an air bubble in an injection or an IV drip ? Did you ever think that if it may harm you or not ? Some of us might have noticed it and just ignored it thinking it may be a usual thing. But betterhealthfacts.com found some important information about what happens if air is injected into veins. However air is not a toxic element for our body, but it is not supposed to flow in our veins. The information that we will provide here might surprise some of you.

What happens if Air bubble is injected into Veins in a Healthy person ?
Don't forget that we are explaining about just an air bubble getting injected in a healthy person. Usually veins carry deoxygenated blood back to heart. So the air bubble will travel to Right Auricle(RA) of Heart. From there it will got the Right Ventricle, which will pump it into Pulmonary Artery to take it to Lungs to get oxygenated. As pulmonary artery leads to lungs, it will get divided into pulmonary capillaries where the bubble will get trapped and will be eliminated through alveoli. But as we said all of this happens only if air bubble is small and the person have a healthy body. If the air bubble is large or if the person is suffering from VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect) or Patent Foramen Ovale(PFO) then the situation can be completely different.

What happens if air bubble is injected into a person is suffering from VSD ?
That is where both luck and bad luck may work. One in every 500 is suffering from VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect), a diseases in which there is a hole in the heart between the right and left ventricle. However bubble first travels to right ventricle and there are very less chances of it getting into left ventricle through the hole, as left ventricle is a high pressure zone. But still if the bad luck works and bubble manages comes into left ventricle then it will be pumped into aorta (the largest artery), which takes blood to different organs. If you are really unlucky this time and the bubble travels to brain then it can be fatal.

What happens if air bubble is injected into a person is suffering from PFO ?
Foramen Ovale is a natural condition in newly born kids. Foramen Ovale is a hole in two upper chambers of heart, which closes as the baby grows. But if that hole does not close then it is called Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO). This condition can cause similar effect for air bubble just like we described about VSD. Your luck matters most in such a case. But what most people don't know is that one in every five person have PFO and most of them spend all of their lives without even knowing it.

What happens in Air bubble reaches your brain ?
Air bubble can block the blood supply to any part of brain, as there are very tiny blood vessels in brain. Brain is one of the most important organs in our body and lack of blood supply to any of its part can lead to various severe medical conditions and some of them are fatal.

However medical practitioners do their best to remove air bubbles from injections and IV drips have a number of mechanisms to stop bubbles from getting into veins. But still if a bubble manages to get into your blood stream then your body has got the mechanism to deal with it. But if you have got conditions like VSD and PFO then your luck matters.

Some people believe that during WW II Nazis have done experiments on prisoners of war to research on this phenomena. According to them if more than 50mm of air is injected in one go then it can be fatal.

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