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Science: Health: Artificial Joints
missing gristle   (0)  [vote for, against]
the chew that just can't be chewed

I picked up a cheap steak for tea. The enjoyment abated when I hit a large lump of gristle. On chewing it over, all I managed to do was clean the gristle of some absorbed components.

What if gristle, mainly cartilage, was washed and packed into joints? Medicine is well known for it's packing, whether it be for bleeding, nutrients where needed or just straight plaster of paris.

Maybe overpacking plus a few bone promoters might allow regrowth before the enzymes can degrade the material back to square one.

An ugly, but simple posibility is just wash knee cartilage, human or other, with needed features and packing it in the damaged knee.

That Kangaroo has made me ten years younger.
-- wjt, Jan 23 2017

synvisc http://www.synviscone.com/
gooey knee injection. [bungston, Jan 24 2017]

Rejection ? The last thing you want is an inflammatory response, and leucocytes piling into the joint to attack the "other" tissue ... that's rheumatoid arthritis.
-- 8th of 7, Jan 23 2017


Actually, they use pig cartilage in human surgery. I believe it's stripped of cells and most antigens.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 23 2017


Sounds like you are positing a knee transplant. I worry about the integrity of the ligaments.

There is some sort of slurry substance which is injected into joints. Maybe it is made of degraded koala cartilage. Synvisc? Let me see.
-- bungston, Jan 24 2017


Those degraded koalas have it coming to them.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 24 2017


//if gristle, mainly cartilage, was washed and packed into joints?//

Baked and widely known to exist, via the simple mechanism of swallowing, digestion, and natural internal use of nutrients for body maintenance purposes.
-- pocmloc, Jan 24 2017


I'm still trying to figure out why you'd make tea from cheap steak?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 24 2017


[2 fries] I know, eh? Steak for tea?! //Tea from cheap steak//...so, 'soup'?

disclaimer: Yes, I know 'tea' means 'supper', as in the canadien-français 'souper', le repas de soir.

No, 'tea' is not 'dinner'. Dinner is 'lunch', as in the French 'dîner', the midday meal.

No kangaroo soup. Moose stew.
-- Sgt Teacup, Jan 24 2017


// Dinner is 'lunch'//

No no no. I appreciate fully that the names given to various meals by various classes of person are entirely arbitrary, but some of them are nevertheless just wrong. "Dinner" is a meal served between 7:30pm* and 9pm. Lunch, self evidently, is the meal served at lunchtime**.

*A pre-theatre dinner can, of course, be taken a little earlier.

**This is why school meals, prepared and served by "dinner ladies" were phased out. It only confused the better class of pupil.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 24 2017


The population is aging and joint surgery will be sought-after by too many people. Another method is sorely needed.

I did imagine a solid would be better because it can be shaped. The problem is, getting the large form in. A liquid can be put in easier but this solution needs the right encapsilation.

What about tiny slippery cartilage packing peanuts that allow a flexibility of movement for ligaments and are solid enougth to give joint compression seperation. Little cartilage bearings that can be key-holed in.
-- wjt, Jan 25 2017


But then they wouldn't be normal
-- pocmloc, Jan 25 2017


Yes they would, "dead" is a perfectly normal state for millions of people.
-- 8th of 7, Jan 25 2017


^ Aren't they a majority by now?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 25 2017


According to the BBC, about 105 billion humans have been born.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2017


What, overnight? Or was this the weekly roundup?
-- pocmloc, Jan 27 2017


They didn't specify.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2017


Maybe, in my dotage, space will be available to take the weight off.
-- wjt, Jan 28 2017



random, halfbakery