Talk:Bleeding

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[edit] Spelling

Is that spelling correct for "Venus"? yes Dictionary.com seems to think so. Sr.Wombat 03:37, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Bleeding used to be an old medical technique for dealing with certain ailments. Can someone who knows about this update this page?

I think traumatic bleeding should be thrown into hemorrhage and maybe this page could deal more with therapeutic bleeding. I look into getting some goss on that.--ZZ 07:44, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Doesn't the average adult have 4 liters of blood?

"The average adult can lose approximately 2 quarts (2 liters) of blood without lasting harm but will be in medical danger after 4 quarts (4 l) and could die of hypovolemic shock if more blood is lost."

I just wanted to check this out, even though I'm not a doctor... Sabbut 22:54, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

AFAIK, an average adult has 5 L of blood, and a loss of 2 L is deadly. But I'm not a doctor either Cdang 15:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You are correct. Your body has an avg of 5L of blood. You can handle 10% loss without a change in blood pressure or cardiac output. Loss of 30-40% (like you said 2L) is fatal. Guyton&Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology Badbrad101 (talk) 20:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old "remedy"

In the old days, people were bled for "therapeutic" purposes. Do we have an article on that? David.Monniaux 16:33, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes. See Bloodletting. - Cybergoth 13:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happened here?

Why was the information about the different types of bleeding (arterial, etc.) removed? This article is about bleeding in general, not just about first aid. I'm putting that back in ASAP. -- Mstroeck 22:49, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merging Hemorrhage into this article

I think Hemorrhage should be merged into this article. The Hemorrhage article is not very big and needs to be cleaned up anyways. (I'm willing to do it.) - Cybergoth 12:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Severe traumatic bleeding

I've changed the current advice in the Severe traumatic bleeding section. Attending to bleeding should only be attempted after following the basic principles of first aid. Calling the emergency services should come before attempting to treat wounds yourself.

Additionally, I'd like to point out that, depending on circumstances, removing the cause of a wound is usually not the correct way to proceed. If the bleeding is severe then pulling out a foreign object may be the equivalent of removing a plug from a geyser. As a general rule it should be left until a medical professional can assess the situation properly. Al001 23:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Several Treatment Issues

This article has an odd feel too it. I'm wondering from what boy scout or army field manual it was written. Some of the treatment advice given seem somewhat dated. I'll try to revise with newer and referenced material as time permits.

Minor bleeding needs a something about wound cleansing as aseptics haven't really shown benefit in well cleaned wounds.

The Severe Bleeding portion needs to be much clearer. Plus, pressure is always recommended for bleeding, followed by pressure dressings, then ice and elevation. Splints should be applied to open fractures to reduce bleeding. I'll have to verify, but I believe that fracture reduction can be attempted to reduce bleeding it other measured have failed. Tournaquets are last resort, even in amputations. Pressure, either direct or arterial, is often enough. And you do want to loosen tournaquets after a few hours to prevent infarction. I have no idea how loosening a tournaquet will cause infarction...except maybe from bleeding out.

Anyone else have thoughts? Bdolcourt 02:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I especially concur on the tourniquet point. I can find no resource that would recommend anyone with little enough training as to be getting first-aid advice on Wikipedia (that is, those who aren't health care professionals, emergency services, etc.) applying a tourniquet as anything other than a last resort. Even the basic high school CPR/first aid training course relates that much information. We need to change that. Everyday847 04:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes Made

I've made some changes to address some of the thoughts above. Also, made some deletions, which I hope will not upset anyone. I am a Board-certified Hematologist and also spent 5 years as an Emergency Physician. These edits are based on my experience and are documented in the literature, although I don't have time to find the references. Hopefully this first attempt will provide the skeleton for me or someone else to improve in the future.

I did delete some sections relating to the emergency treatment of bleeding. I hope this won't upset anyone. Unfortunately, I have seen people bleed seriously as people felt that they were not empowered to stop the bleeding by grabbing any cloth (dirty, clean, whatever) and just holding firm pressure. It is more important to save the person's life than to worry about causing another injury or contaminating the wound. That being said, these factors are important, if it is possible to consider them. We can give antibiotics to deal with contaminate wounds, but we can't (usually) bring someone back from death.

Other sections were edited, but I tried to leave in as much of the original as possible.

HTW 22:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

What idiot deleted the bleeding page! I was using it for a medical school project, jerk!

undone! Mike.lifeguard 04:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes made to wound types

I changed Laceration to a different definition and removed incision. My source is Emergency Responce, written by the Red Cross of America. If you have anything that contradicts this, just tell me. I seriously won't be editing that part again if you do. 67.171.167.106 07:11, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, thanks for your edit (especially as it's sourced!). I have put it back, as there is a clear medical difference between incision and laceration, although in some cases laceration is used to describe both, so i'm updating the article to reflect this. Certainly the UK official first aid manual (published by the Red Cross, St John Ambulance and St Andrews Ambulance jointly) recognise the difference, as does the UK IHCD ambulance training syllabus. Cheers Owain.davies 09:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Alright, that's fair enough, and we do need to include the opinions (and facts) from other countries, otherwise this would become a solely american article very fast. And you do look like you know more than me.. Oh, by the way, 6.7.171.167.106 is my IP adress, I was using it until I could figure out my username again. Silverfireshadow 08:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)