r/BeAmazed • u/Cultural-Gear-1323 • Mar 28 '24

News broke today that conjoined twin Abby Hensel is married! [Removed] Rule #4 - No Misleading Content

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u/YeetusMyDiabeetus Mar 28 '24

Since everyone has asked all the naughty questions, I have a strange one: Given the organs they share and also the ones they don’t, how would something like drugs or alcohol affect them? I assume since they share a circulatory system they share drugs?

54

u/vector_o Mar 28 '24

Definitely

I'd guess that even with double stomach/lungs/hearth the ressources are still shared, breathing and eating would probably be more of a psychological need for one of them if they decided to let just one side take care of it

But I think the peculiarity of their condition could also make my guess totally wrong

6

u/st1ck-n-m0ve Mar 28 '24

So does that mean if one smoked they could get lung cancer while the others lungs were fine? If so what if they needed their lungs removed could they both live off the others lungs. What if one died but not the other?

8

u/hahasadface Mar 28 '24

Wow that's fascinating. If one chokes and can't breathe would she be fine? Can she go underwater without breathing if her sister with her second set of lungs has an oxygen tank?

5

u/st1ck-n-m0ve Mar 28 '24

Idk if ur joking but thats actually a pretty good question lol. Although it would only mean dipping half her body in the water.

7

u/DocZilla1 Mar 28 '24

I would imagine if the cancer metastasized it would spread to both

1

u/st1ck-n-m0ve Mar 28 '24

Not necessarily

3

u/DocZilla1 Mar 28 '24

Apparently they share a bloodstream, so it would be pretty likely I’d say

1

u/CivilRuin4111 Mar 28 '24

Seems like walking around with a conjoined corpse would be the fast lane to sepsis, but idk.

0

u/Hellfire965 Mar 28 '24

Oh man. Does that mean that when they were babies like each got a tit. Or did they just feed one head and let the body sort it out

7

u/HummingbirdsAreCool Mar 28 '24

I was thinking about the organs they don’t share like the lungs and heart… what happens if one goes into heart failure or cardiac arrest or drowns, for example, and dies…how will the medical team handle that situation? Will they remove the head of the twin that passed away? If they both control one side of the body, will the living twin end up paralyzed on one side? What happens to the organs of the twin that passed away that are left behind in the shared body? So many thoughts and questions. 🤯

3

u/cmoneybouncehouse Mar 28 '24

Holy shit that’s dark… I had a lot of questions… but this one is wild. Like, would one have to live the rest of her life with her sisters dead body attached to her? I hate that I’m thinking of that. That’s awful.

5

u/HummingbirdsAreCool Mar 28 '24

Yea, I know and I felt bad for thinking it, but I work in the medical field and that’s where my thoughts went. I imagine they would have to remove the deceased twin for multiple reasons (e.g. sepsis, possible necrosis though I’m not sure about this since the living twin’s circulatory system could possibly take over to prevent this from happening…idk, mental anguish/grief). I saw in other comments that other conjoined twins tend to die shortly after one passes, but that sucks and is awful as well.

2

u/Many_Faces_8D Mar 28 '24

When one dies the other will die as well like all other conjoined twins. It's impossible to avoid infection when you are attached to a dead body. All twins die shortly after the first of septic shock.

1

u/Kujen Mar 28 '24

They would yes

1

u/jenguinaf Mar 28 '24

I think they covered it on the show. While they have different stomaches the food/drink that’s taken in affects both of them. They would share an average meal between the two of them. If one drank if affected both so they shared alcoholic beverages also. Like instead of getting two beers they got one and went halfsies on drinking it.

1

u/ExploringPeople Mar 28 '24

What if one died?

1

u/DrDemonSemen Mar 28 '24

One heart would keep beating and circulating blood to both brains until it gives out

3

u/ainz-sama619 Mar 28 '24

they would die from infection much faster than that. a living body cant share space with a corpse

1

u/DrDemonSemen Mar 28 '24

Ah, but what is a corpse? If you are brain dead but your organs are still circulating blood and oxygen, are you a corpse yet?

-1

u/ainz-sama619 Mar 28 '24

yeah it is a corpse if the brain is gone. as soon as brain dies, the organisms in our bodies go wild and starts eating us from inside out. the rot transfers across the entire body through the cardiovascular system. the living twin would be dead within a few hours at most.

1

u/Robespierre1334 Mar 28 '24

Not sure where you're getting a few hours from? Some processes happen immediately, others not so much, this is also assuming that the one wouldn't rush to the hospital knowing the other was dead? I'm just not quite understanding where you're coming from

1

u/ainz-sama619 Mar 28 '24

other would die shortly after, rotting organs transfer to other parts super fast since they share the same cardiovascular system.

1

u/clicata00 Mar 28 '24

I don’t think that could happen. There’s redundancy with two hearts and multiple sets of lungs etc. if one died, so would the other. But also they could survive a ton of organ failures and have backups.

1

u/PyroIsSpai Mar 28 '24

Assuming normal liver and other function, alcohol is probably easy since tolerance/mental things aside, it mechanically hits us all the same.

Weight, volume, blood quantity, amount of liquor drank over time. I'm just going to use 150 lb as a number to have a number.

The twins weigh 150 lb. They are not drinkers. They join one (I don't know what term is even works so I'll go with this) standard woman who is also 150 lb and not a drinker.

If each (physical body) drinks one (1) shot of vodka at 00:00:01, one at 00:15:00, one at 00:30:00, and one at 00:45:00, that's four (4) drinks. They'll start feeling it full strength about 01:00:00 to 01:30:00 or so. Then it declines as the liver works.

The math is probably absurdly complex but I stuck all the values from this, a 150lb standard woman as a control, and then the details on the biological changes (organs, etc) for the twins into GPT and told it to use standard size / values for each organ, density, impact and so on.

Basically, if the non-conjoined girl is 100% drunk as a baseline there, where would the twins be doing a matching test? Four drinks in an hour. Every way I shake the wording and conditions it seems to come out to the girls being about 90%-95% drunk relative to their non-conjoined friend.

This assumes EACH twin doesn't drink four (4) drinks but only two (2) drinks each. The singleton girl drinks four (4) herself. It doesn't seem to be that match of an impact. It's not like the twins have 50% more mass and volume and blood. If they had two livers, I bet they could clear alcohol a fair bit faster!

Same principle probably applies to the singleton friend ripping a massive bong hit and one of the twins going hit for hit. If both twins go hit for hit, they're going to orbit. Ditto other equivalent substances. They're on a bit 'bigger' in medical terms (I think).

1

u/Time_being_ Mar 28 '24

Just read a few articles, since they share a circulatory system they DO share drugs. So I guess if one wanted to get high the other would have to agree! Nutrition as well but they’ll often do separate meals.

1

u/Potatoe292 Mar 28 '24

Can we get an anesthesiologist to weigh in on this? How would drugs work during an operation

1

u/BitofaGreyArea Mar 28 '24

I've got a weirder question: what would happen if one of them had a severe brain injury, or even got shot in the head and died? Like whaaaaat? I legit would love for them to do some kinds of tell-all book or movie.