Search for tag: "horse"

Interviewer: How to be sure you are safe when you're riding a horse or are around horses, that's next on The Scope.

Announcer: This is, "From the Frontlines," with emergency room physician Dr. Troy Madsen, on The Scope. On The Scope.

Interviewer: Dr. Troy Madsen is an emergency room physician at University of Utah Health Care. I thought it was interesting. Dr. Madsen told me that in August here in Utah that there tend to be more horse injuries that come into the ER than any other time of the month. Maybe it's because of the fair circuit, maybe it's because of the rodeos. But I thought it would be interesting to find out what are the common horse injuries you see so people could be wary of that and protect against those sorts of things. So what is it?

Dr. Madsen: Well, you w you're exactly right. It is something we do see and for whatever reason, maybe more in the month of August, like you said, because of fairs or different events, rodeos, things like that going on. It's interesting; several years ago we actually looked at the causes of more significant trauma in our ER, those people who stayed at least overnight in the hospital, and horses were on the top five in that list at University of Utah. So kind of interesting.

Interviewer: Wow, I never would have guessed that. I would think there are so many other things out there that would be so much more dangerous, but . . .

Dr. Madsen: Exactly.

Interviewer: . . . a horse can be pretty dangerous, apparently.

Dr. Madsen: Horses can. I mean, at least in terms of some of the injuries we see.

Interviewer: Yeah. Doing some serious damage. So kind of what's the most common horse injury that you would see that causes a lot of damage?

Dr. Madsen: The most common injury would be head injuries. You've got to think of it kind of like bikes or motorcycles. If you fall off a horse, the biggest risk is going to be your head and your spine. I think the biggest thing we see with horses is people who get bucked off a horse, who come down on their head, who then have a significant head injury. Maybe a skull fracture or lacerations, bleeding in the head being the most significant thing that we see.

Then they are either brought to the ER because they're unresponsive or maybe they lost consciousness, they regained consciousness. We do testing on them to make sure there's no bleeding or lacerations to repair or any of a number of things that can happen with the head injuries.

Interviewer: So it sounds like that could be just about as dangerous like a motorcycle or a four-wheeler and so forth or maybe even more so?

Dr. Madsen: You've got to figure the height you're up on a horse. You're probably up sitting at least 4 feet off the ground and when you fall from that height, that's certainly higher than you would fall off a motorcycle or a four-wheeler.

Interviewer: A lot of times, a motorcycle might go down sideways so you're even closer to the ground before the head hits. So when you fall off a horse, it's . . .

Dr. Madsen: Yeah, exactly. And you're 4 feet up and then, if a horse kind of rears up and throws you off their back, you're even higher. So you can come off a pretty good height, not necessarily at the speeds for four wheelers or motorcycles but still, there's definite danger there in terms of coming down and hurting your head. As I mentioned, the other thing too is spine injuries. When we think of head injuries, we also think of the head getting pushed forward or some sort of damage or something hitting the spine directly. And then that can cause some very serious issues as well. So that's the other big thing we see and we look for.

Interviewer: All right. So helmets for head injuries, even though it's not as cool as a cowboy hat

Dr. Madsen: That's right.

Interviewer: I mean, I guess if you want to be safe. Spine injuries, is there really anything one could do to protect themselves against that if you're getting on a horse?

Dr. Madsen: Not a whole lot.

Interviewer: Yeah. That just might be part of the deal.

Dr. Madsen: It is and there are actually some inflatable vests that people can wear. I'm not sure exactly how they work, if here's something that then attaches to the saddle where if a person is bucked off the horse this vest inflates and actually protects the person. I personally know someone, an older lady, who was wearing one of these vests when she was thrown from her horse and she had some pretty significant injuries, but nothing that was so serious. And she probably really benefited from this vest inflating and protecting her.

She swears by it and says it made a big difference for her. So it's something where I know that's something that's out there that people may be aware of that you can use as well that probably does provide some spine protection and protection to your chest and abdomen.

Interviewer: All right. So those sound like ones that are probably staying overnight. Are there other injuries that you tend to see horse related?

Dr. Madsen: We see kind of the full spectrum of orthopedic injuries. People who get scrapes and cuts on their arms and legs, broken forearms. You've got to figure if you come down from that height, you try and brace yourself with your forearm. There's a good chance you're going to fracture your forearm. Ankle injury is also very common, depending how you come down. You come down on your ankle, your lower leg can snap. So we do see those injuries as well.

Again, those are things, maybe they're an overnight stay, maybe it's something we can repair in the ER. But kind of the full spectrum. Everything we see with motorcycles, with ATVs, with bicycles, we see all those things with horses as well and maybe even compounded a little more just because the height the person is falling from.

Interviewer: Sure. It sounds like maybe the advice is to wear a helmet and then also just treat the horse, treat the animal with respect. I think it can be easy for a horse person to kind of forget.

Dr. Madsen: Exactly. You become comfortable with the animal. You think, "Well, this is safer than a motorcycle or an ATV." Again, it's on our top five list of things we do see injuries with. They do happen. It's something to be aware of.

Announcer: If you like what you heard, be sure to get our latest content. Sign up for weekly content updates at thescoperadio.com. This is The Scope, powered by University of Utah Health Sciences. Want more on this topic? Get more on this topic at thescoperadio.com. If you like what you heard, be sure to get our latest content.

Dr. Jones: When is a human uterus like a horse or a cat uterus? Well, it's not, except when it is. This is Dr. Kirtly Jones from obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah Health and we're talking about uterine anomalies today on the Scope.

Announcer: Covering all aspects of women's health, this is the Seven Domains of Women's Health with Dr. Kirtly Jones on The Scope.

Dr. Jones: The human uterus is shaped sort of like a light bulb, the old-fashioned kind. The metal part at the bottom is the cervix, which keeps the uterus anchored in the pelvis and keeps the baby in. The bulb part is the actual uterus. Inside the bulb is the uterine cavity where the baby grows and it's normally shaped like an upside down triangle. Two corners at the top of the triangle point into the fallopian tubes and one corner points down into the cervix. The uterine cavity is flat like an envelope until it's filled with the pregnancy.

Congenital uterine anomalies, malformations of the uterus that occur during fetal development, are common. About five percent of women, one in 20, will have some kind of uterine abnormality. Although many women have a uterus that slightly abnormally shaped and they may never know about or have any problems. Some uterine shapes can cause recurrent miscarriages or premature births or infertility.

Rarely, about one in 5,000, women have two uteruses and two cervices and two vaginas and about one in 1000 women have no uterus, no cervix, and no vagina. Understanding how the uterus develops is helpful here. In human and mammal development, there are two tubes that come together in the pelvis. These two tubes fuse together at the lower end and the middle of the fuse two tubes dissolves to make one uterine cavity and one cervix with the two fallopian tubes at the top.

Now, this is something that's really better on video than audio. So let's do an experiment. Imagine yourself taking two foam tubes, one in each hand. The kind of floppy foam tubes. So you're holding these foam tubes, you bring your hands together and the foam tubes in your hands at the lower part of these tubes fuse and the upper parts are kind of floppy on the sides. Those are the fallopian tubes so where they fused together, that makes the uterus.

Now if that fusion doesn't happen normally, if you got those two foam tubes in your hands, you get to uteruses and two cervices. If at all fuses and dissolves, your hands come together and you get no uterus or cervix. If it fuses but doesn't dissolve completely, you can have a uterus that's Y shaped with two horns or uterus with the wall down the middle.

Men, by the way, had these two tubes when they were developing but males make a chemical that makes the entire uterine system disappear well before they're born. That's why guys don't have a uterus.

Women without a uterus or cervix don't have periods so that's usually discovered when they're teenagers. We want to end with just a little dent on the top of the triangular uterine cavity, like horses, have about we call arcuate uterus or heart-shaped uterus and they may never know it as it doesn't cause problems.

Women with the Y-shaped uterus, we call it bicornuate, and that's the normal shape for mammals to have lots of little babies like cats, may find out that this is the uterus when they have premature babies. Women with the wall in the uterine cavity, called a septum, may find out that they when they have recurrent miscarriages.

There are many other less common uterine anomalies, but what do we do about this? Well, the majority of women with uterine anomalies have no problems except with pregnancy. We don't recommend that all baby girls or young women have imaging of the uterus to find out if it's normally shaped or not.

Some women find out that they have an abnormally shaped uterus when they have a cesarean section, maybe for a breech baby, and an abnormally shaped uterus is more likely to lead to a breech presentation of the baby.

Women who have had a very premature baby for no good reason may be advised to get imaging of their uterus. Depending on the problem, this might be done with a special kind of ultrasound or an X-ray that puts a special fluid in the uterus so the uterine cavity can be evaluated on a screen or an MRI.

Women with recurrent miscarriages usually get some kind of imaging to see if they might have a septum or wall down the middle of their uterus. The good news is that reproductive medicine specialists can surgically remove this wall with excellent results for the next pregnancy.

If someone has a uterine anomaly, what kind of doctor should they see? At the U, we have a team of reproductive endocrinologists, specialists in reproductive problems, who often team up with our high-risk pregnancy specialists to work out a plan for each woman and her uterine problem.

Surgical correction of the problem is often is an option. When there's no way to correct the problem, we often talk about gestational surrogacy where we use someone else's uterus to carry your biological baby, which we can do at the University of Utah Hospital in our Center for Reproductive Medicine.

Human development is amazing and interesting and, of course, I think the reproductive system is the coolest. But when things don't go exactly right, there are specialists who have experience and probably they can help you out. And thanks for joining us on The Scope.

Announcer: TheScopeRadio.com is University of Utah Health Radio. If you like what you heard be sure to get our latest content by following us on Facebook, just click on the Facebook icon at the ScopeRadio.com.