Episode 9 Operation Ouch!

He's Dr Chris...

He's Dr Xand...

and, yes, we're twins.

Do you know how brilliant your body really is?

My finger's got yellow pus in it.

Well, we're going to show you.

-Yay!

-In this series, we'll be pushing our bodies to their limits.

I like the sound of this.

By doing extraordinary experiments on each other.

This is my sick.

To uncover what goes on inside...

Urgh!

..and out.

Wow, that's amazing.

From the bizarre...

..to the incredible.

So, now I'm seeing things.

It's time to find out what you're made of.

Chris... Chris? Chris!

Coming up today...

On Operation Ouch...

I meet someone who fakes wounds for a living.

I'm hoping this is going to be the least painful burn I've ever had.

Max's face needs fixing...

and we meet Dr Dog.

-Ha!

-It smells like doggy snacks.

The team from accident and emergency

is ready for our first patient.

Let's meet him.

At Sheffield Children's Hospital, four-year-old Max has come in

with a peculiarly puffy face.

I fell down

and hurt my cheek.

Yeah, you did.

So where were you?

In the living room

on the wooden floor...

..near the wooden table.

-You "wooden't" believe it, would you, Xand?

-Hmm.

So, how on earth did this happen?

Well, a couple of days ago, Max was at home

watching his favourite monster film on TV.

Oh, I love a good monster film.

Me too.

Anyway, Max was really getting into the film -

running about like the monsters...

..when, all of a sudden, he tripped.

He flew through the air and landed with a bump on the wooden floor,

cutting his cheek on the wooden table.

Ow!

Yes, and it didn't stop there.

Over the next couple of days, Max's face swelled up,

causing his left eye to start closing.

Ouch.

So, his mum and nan have brought him straight to hospital.

His face is very swollen and red.

Enter Dr Oladayo Oladipo.

He'll check out our monster-loving friend.

-Hello, Max, how are you?

-I'm not too bad.

Good, I'm going to examine you now.

-Is that all right?

-Hmm.

-OK.

The doctor needs to give Max a thorough examination

and make sure he hasn't broken any of his facial bones.

And there's a bit of...

swelling around that area.

It looks like it's infected and is going around the face, OK?

Max has an infection of his skin called cellulitis.

It happens when your skin is broken by a cut or insect bite

and bacteria get in.

Sometimes the infection stays near the surface,

but sometimes the bacteria infect the deeper layer,

like with Max, causing the whole area

to go red and swell up

and this is cellulitis.

Because Max has cellulitis around his eye,

it could cause bigger problems if it continues to spread.

With the spread of the infection,

there's a chance that his brain function will be affected,

his sight will be affected, his breathing could also be affected.

So we need to control that infection quite quickly.

To do this, Max is being given antibiotics

straight into the veins

through the back of his hand, and this way

the medicine works much faster than swallowing tablets.

He'll have to stay in hospital until the medicine starts to work,

but he doesn't look too unhappy about it.

We'll be back later to see how he's getting on.

-And now to our lab...

-Wow!

..where we do incredible experiments...

Oh, it's disgusting.

..to show YOU how your body works.

So watch this.

To kick off today's lab, we're using this machine

to see what's in our breath.

Your breath has lots of gases in it.

Some are smelly, like hydrogen sulphide.

It's made by the bacteria that live in your mouth

and it's what makes the bad smell when you let one rip.

When it's mixed with the food and drink you've eaten,

it can make your breath honk.

Let's look at Chris' results.

Chris, you have detectable levels

of fishy cabbage smell in your breath.

Not nice. Thanks, Xand.

But actually your breath can tell you much more

than what you've had for dinner, as we're going to show you.

What's going on? Who's this?

-This is Daisy.

-Am I being replaced? What are your qualifications?

You're not being replaced.

Daisy's here to help us with today's experiment

because your breath can reveal a huge amount about you.

It can be the first sign of many illnesses

and, like your fingerprints, your breath is unique.

No-one else has the same breath.

Haa!

-It smells like doggy snacks.

-No.

But I did find some lovely biscuits on the floor on the way in.

-Were they in a bowl?

-Yes.

Did the bowl say "Daisy" on it?

-Yes.

-Oh.

Now, everyone has bad breath at some point, even Daisy.

But even if your breath isn't bad, it still has a smell

and it's the smell

that contains information about you and your health.

So, if you have asthma, even though you can't smell asthma,

your breath will have more nitric oxide in it, which you can detect.

Or if you have diabetes, your breath may have

more of a compound called acetone in it.

It's the same chemical that's in nail varnish remover.

In fact, there's a whole range of medical conditions

that can be detected on your breath.

But not by us, even though we're doctors,

not by specialist medical researchers,

not even by complicated equipment.

That's why Daisy is here.

She's a specially-trained smell "dogtor".

Daisy's been trained by Claire to detect serious illnesses,

like cancer, in a person's breath.

So, Claire, how does Daisy do it?

Well, when people are unwell, they smell different,

so some people have kindly donated

their breath samples onto this tube.

So, they breathe in that and then the smelly molecules

in their breath stick inside this sponge here.

Absolutely, and then in training,

we show this sponge to Daisy and we've been able

to train her to tell us if somebody has a very serious disease.

Time to see Daisy in action.

Now, we've laid out three samples of breath

and one of the samples is from a patient with a serious illness.

Now, the one from the patient with the illness...

Chris! You can't say in front of Daisy, she'll hear.

She's going to find it herself.

Xand, she's a dog, she doesn't speak English.

It's sample A.

Now, Claire, shall we set off Daisy and see if she can find it?

Daisy. Seek, seek.

She's done it.

And unbelievably, it took her just six seconds.

That's amazing. There was no debate,

she didn't even have to check one of the samples, she knew.

As soon as she smelt that odour,

she sits down and tells us she's found it.

So, while Daisy is special, she's not actually got

any more smell receptors than any other dog.

Take Sooty and Spike here.

Although they might be better

at sniffing out where their ball is

than detecting illness, inside their noses

they have 220 million smell receptors,

whereas we only have 5 million.

And there are other dogs like Daisy who've been trained to sniff out

different medical conditions.

So, if someone has diabetes, for instance,

and they have the wrong level of sugar in their blood,

the dog can actually detect that

and warn them to take their medication.

-Ha...

-So, although your breath can sometimes smell bad,

its smell can also reveal vital information about your health.

Claire, that was brilliant, thank you so much for coming in.

And, Daisy, you did such a good job!

You understand, don't you? Yes, you do.

The hallway - it's the last room in the house you leave

and the first you come back to.

It's the part of the house that says,

"Hey, I'm going out somewhere"

and, "Hey, I'm back."

-But the hallway can also be a place of danger.

-Wuh!

You could hit your head on one of the coat hooks.

Ow!

You could trip over the shoes

you've carelessly left lying around.

Argh! Ooh. Ouch.

Or you could forget to take your muddy shoes off

and start walking upstairs, leaving footprints everywhere,

-which will make your mother furious.

-Oh.

If you look out for THOSE dangers, you should be fine.

-Oh, Xand, can you get the door?

-Sure.

Argh! My finger.

Ooh.

Yep, I've got a minor injury.

So, what should you do if you hurt your finger?

The answer is C.

Apply something cold and hold it there for no more than ten minutes.

CLOCK TICKS

Right, let's go to the park. Where's the football?

It's right in the hallway just by my shoes, next to my...

Argh! GLASS SMASHES

..skateboard.

So, if you hurt your finger, then put something cold on it

for no more than ten minutes or until the pain has gone away.

We've got some incredible body tricks

for you to show your friends.

Want to make your arms float all by themselves?

Well, that's what this lot are trying to do.

Come on, Paul, push harder.

Believe it or not, their arms are rising up completely on their own.

They just, like, go, "hey".

It's making my hands move.

When I go like this, it rises.

I actually feel like my hands are rising up.

That's quite weird.

So, how is this possible and what do we do to make it happen?

First, you need to push your hands against each other like this.

With the person on the inside pushing out

and the person on the outside pushing in.

Do this really hard against each other for as long as you can.

Then let go and the person with the arms on the inside

needs to relax and then see what happens.

Who thinks they can explain why it worked?

If the person's putting pressure,

like, is pushing,

and then you're pushing really hard back,

if they let go, like, really quickly and you're still pushing,

your arms will just go, like, bounce and they'll go up.

Well, Lorenzo is right.

Because your arms are pushing so hard against your partner's,

when you stop, it takes your arms a little time to relax

and realise that the force has gone

and this is what makes your arms float.

Right, so what happens is you're tensing all your muscles

and then when you relax,

the muscles that were tense are still pulling your arms up.

So, all these muscles that have been tense,

you're relaxing the push in

and the muscles that are on the outside of your arms

are still quite tense

and they're just making it feel like your arms are lifting up.

Who thinks Lorenzo's explanation was better?

OK, you're right, Lorenzo was better.

Earlier, Max had to take a trip to accident and emergency.

Let's see if he's getting better.

Back in Sheffield, four-year-old Max is being treated

with antibiotics for cellulitis, an infection of the skin

that causes redness and swelling.

It all started a couple of days ago

when Max was watching his favourite monster film on TV.

He was running about, joining in with the fun,

when he tripped and cut his cheek on the table.

Max's mum treated the wound at the time and it looked like

it was healing, but underneath, an infection was spreading.

So, with a lot of swelling around his eye,

we need to make sure that

his eyesight isn't affected by the cellulitis infection.

Over to eye specialist Dr Imran Haq to see what he can see.

I need to have a look at your eye.

Is that OK?

-Mmm.

-Yeah?

The layers of the skin, if they become inflamed,

that's basically what cellulitis is.

In his case we're worried if it's orbital cellulitis -

that's when it involves the actual area where the eye is.

If that's involved,

then it can sometimes not only damage the eye,

but track back into the brain itself and that can cause problems.

So, Dr Imran makes sure Max's eye is moving normally

and then he gets out a nifty bit of headgear.

This lets him look right into the back of Max's eyeball

and it'll show if the infection

has spread from Max's face into his eye.

I spy with my big eye.

With this, I wanted to really look at the back of the eye

and see if there's pressure on the optic nerve.

That's the nerve that leaves the back of the eye

to go to the brain.

In his case, the infection hasn't spread that far

and it's only limited to the skin itself, not involving the eye.

So, I think Max will be absolutely fine,

as long as he gets antibiotics.

He'll probably be home in a couple of days.

With his eye given the all clear,

now Max just has to wait for the antibiotics

to tackle his skin infection and get the swelling down in his face.

Day two and it's time for an update.

I'm getting better.

That's good.

His eye has gone down considerably,

but he's still inflamed underneath his eye.

It's quite a difference from day one,

although he's not ready to go home yet.

Oh, no!

Max has to stay in hospital for another night,

to get more antibiotics into his system.

But the next day, there's good news.

Yes, a lot better.

He does look much less swollen now.

Now that he's had antibiotics for two days,

Max has improved dramatically.

The cellulitis has been curtailed

and we're happy for him to go home.

Any by the looks of it, Max can't wait.

Maybe that monster movie's on the telly again.

-MAX:

-Bye.

BOTH TWINS: Bye, Max.

Still to come, the Unluckiest Kid catches a cold,

but we tell you how your body deals with it.

Harrison turns up in the emergency department

with something stuck in his ear.

And I meet someone who makes fake injuries for a living.

That patient would obviously be in a lot of pain.

Did you know that the bones in your body aren't white at all?

They're actually beige.

They only become white if they're cleaned and boiled.

That's amazing. So is this.

An ordinary boxing club,

with ordinary people working out.

This man's hard at it.

Is he a boxer?

No, Xand.

Is he a wrestler?

He certainly is.

Oh, he looks very angry.

Hang on a minute. Why is he sitting down?

He's getting "ready to rumble"!

Meet Alan "Nasty" Nash

and he's the world champion toe wrestler.

It's just like arm wrestling, but with your toes.

You have to lock toes and then push your opponent's foot

to the side.

Alan's so good at it, he's won the world title eight times.

Do you have to pull that face when you're toe wrestling?

What an amazing "feet".

How does he do it?

Alan's mighty moves aren't just down to his twinkling toes.

His strength comes from his legs.

Alan trains at the gym three times a week to build up massive muscles.

Grr, there's that mean face again.

Power is then transferred into Alan's short, stumpy toes...

Oi!

..through his massive flexor hallucis longus,

that's the big toe muscle to you and me, which runs from his calf

down his ankle and into the big toe.

With all that power, Alan's toes take a real battering in matches.

Over the years he's broken nine of them.

It's a dangerous sport, so best not try it yourself.

I've had an injury that was so bad I had to have the toe taken off,

the bone ground down and then the toe put back on again.

RECORD SCRATCHES What?

I had to have the toe taken off,

the bone ground down and then the toe put back on again.

That's what I thought he said.

Loser!

That's amazing.

This next boy may be accident-prone,

but his body is brilliant at mending itself.

Just like yours.

# If there's a bone to break He'll break it.

# If there's a knee to graze He'll graze it.

# If there's an ankle to sprain He'll sprain it.

# He's the Unluckiest Kid. #

Atchoo!

Colds are caused by viruses and enter your body

through your mouth or nose.

Once inside, they start reprogramming your cells

to make more and more viruses,

but luckily, your immune system is on the case.

First, it makes loads of snot that traps some of the germs,

so you can blow them out.

But there's still work to do with the rest.

You can throw the tissue away now, Unluckiest Kid.

T-cells grab the virus intruders so they can't get away.

Then B-cells flood the area with antibodies,

which make the viruses stick together,

so they're easier to fight.

And then macrophages eat the viruses, killing them instantly.

Mmm, delicious.

In about a week you'll be feeling better,

but try to sneeze into your elbow, so you don't spread germs.

Oh, dear, here we go again.

# He's the unluckiest kid. #

On today's Investigation Ouch, I'm going behind the scenes

of one of the most famous hospital drama series around.

MUSIC: Theme from Casualty

Casualty has been running for nearly 30 years

and is based around the fictional Holby City hospital.

Everyone on the show is an actor...

IV access and bloods please.

And pretend doctors have to treat pretend patients

with almost every type of pretend condition.

The good news is, there doesn't appear to be a fracture,

but you may have torn a ligament.

I've come to Cardiff's Roath Lock Studios,

where Casualty is made,

to have a look around the set and see what goes on.

So obviously, as a doctor, I'm really used to being in a hospital,

but standing here on the set, it is totally convincing.

All the details are right.

There's a heart monitor there, there's the ultrasound machine,

the beds are correct, all the details,

even the notes on the nurses' desk are right.

This is Kirstie Stanway, head of the prosthetics department.

She's a make-up magician, who can create pretty much any injury,

in what has to be one of the most gruesome offices ever.

So, Kirstie, what kind of injuries have we got here?

We've got a heart operation here, with a heart that beats

and a lung that inflates.

You actually do stuff inside the body as well?

Sometimes, yeah.

Even though it's not full of blood, it looks very realistic.

Yeah, we try and make it look as realistic as we can.

So, there's some stuff that's inside the body

and then you're also obviously able to do skin really beautifully.

Yeah. So, all the skins are made out of silicone.

So, this is a guy that had a stab wound,

so this has just been stitched.

So, how does this work? Do you put this on an actor?

Yes, and then just hide all the joins.

I mean, that is a very convincing cut and tummy, isn't it?

Yes, I think so.

So, although some rubbery bits of body

are wrapped around the stomach,

a fake leg like this is placed on the hospital bed

and the actor hides his real leg underneath.

This leg is quite amazing, isn't it?

The top of the leg looks like it's in the normal position

and the foot is turned in a position

you could never normally turn it into

without having a very bad break. We know there's a bad break,

cos we've got bone poking through the skin.

That patient would obviously be in a lot of pain.

All these fake injuries wouldn't be complete without some fake blood.

So, here's our blood cupboard

and we have lots of different types of blood here.

Like AB positive, O negative,

A positive, B negative?

No, no, not quite like that.

We have our fresh blood here and here.

-Oh, so you have blood that looks different?

-Yes.

OK. So this is...?

-This is our fresh blood here.

-Let's have a look.

-That's fresh.

-Yeah, and that's bright red, isn't it?

Yeah, then we have dark blood here.

Really nice.

What else?

And then we have a congealed here, which is thicker.

Oh, with blobs in it.

Yeah, that's really good, isn't it?

This blood is fake,

but different blood has different characteristics.

This fresh blood is bright red

and that's because it's got oxygen in it

and that's when you cut yourself or you have a nosebleed

and the blood's bright red.

This dark blood, you might see in an operation if you cut a vein.

Veins don't have oxygen in their blood, so that would look darker.

Then this stuff here, it's somewhere between red and dark

and it's got big lumps in it and that's clots forming, is it?

-Yes.

-So, it looks real,

but actually it's just sugar water with food colouring.

So, my hand's looking quite ill now.

Can you give me a bigger injury?

Yeah, would you like a burn or something like that?

Yeah. A burn, let's give me a burn.

Only I would get that excited about a burn.

Kirstie starts by sticking on

some pre-made wounds from silicone moulds.

So already it's obvious there's something very wrong with my hand.

She applies some special blister gel and sprays it with red paint...

..and then adds some more fluid.

And the burn is finished off with black paint.

OK, so there's your burn.

So, looking at this as a doctor,

this is a very realistic and serious burn.

The skin's all puckered up.

There's fluid oozing out of it, because of the inflammation.

You can see the redness from the increased blood flow

and, of course, the charring from the burn itself.

-Kirstie, that is amazing. Thank you very much indeed.

-You're welcome.

I've had SUCH a great day here at Casualty

and I'm really impressed with all the effort

that goes into making the show as realistic as possible,

especially my burn. I'm going to go and show it to Xand.

I don't think he'll be fooled, though.

Of course not, Chris, I'm a real doctor.

Our next patient was expecting a normal day.

But he's ended up in hospital.

This is definitely an unusual accident.

In the hospital waiting room

is five-year-old Harrison with his mum.

He's here because...

Is he too tall?

-No.

-OK, why, then?

Because I have something in my ear.

Oh! Do you know what it is?

No.

Are you sure?

A chickpea.

A chickpea? OK.

How on earth did it end up in your ear?

Harrison was at school inspecting a new display, the animal corner.

Ooh, look at the cutesy-wootsy piggies.

Ah, chickens!

No, it was an African Savanna, Xand.

Really? What, with elephants and zebras, in school?

Yeah, that's right, Xand.

Real elephants and zebras in Harrison's school(!)

Duh, it was a model.

Anyway, Harrison was busy checking it out

when he noticed the desert sand was made out of chickpeas.

He had an idea and picked one up.

Don't do it.

And he put it in his lughole.

Ouch!

Rolling upside down isn't going to get it out, Harrison.

Over to you, Dr Catherine Rimmer.

So, what's happened to you today?

I have a...

Come on, spill the beans.

You mean peas.

..a chickpea in my ear.

Yep, he did say a chickpea.

Let's have a little look, shall we?

Dr Catherine uses a medical torch to look into Harrison's lughole.

Let's have a look inside. Oh, it's still there.

So, shall we take it out for you?

That would be a good idea, wouldn't it?

So, if you hang on a minute,

I'm going to get a special tool to get it out of your ear.

-A hoover?

-No, Xand.

It's called a chickpea remover.

We have them in our special store cupboard.

Oh, of course, the famous chickpea remover(!)

Home to the smallest bone in your whole body,

your ears are divided up into three parts -

the inner, middle and outer ear,

connected by the ear canal.

And that's where Harrison's chickpea is stuck.

If it's left in there, it could cause an infection,

so we need to get it out.

Now then, what's going to happen, Harrison,

it's going to be a little bit tickly, but it shouldn't be

too uncomfortable, OK,

and we'll get this chickpea out for you.

So, with the special chickpea remover in hand,

the doctor gets to work.

So, nice and still for me, Harrison.

And "ear" we go.

The chickpea's appeared to say hello.

Oh, there we go, there it is!

Oh, well done.

That's a bit of a big thing in your little ear.

Now, there's only half of one in there.

I want to have a look inside and make sure

there's nothing else inside.

Dr Catherine has another "peer in his ear"

to make sure it's all clear.

No, it's just caused a little bit of bleeding, Mum,

-on the inside of the ear.

-OK.

But there's no more chickpeas inside, so it was only a half one.

-Are you going to have chickpea for tea?

-No!

With his ear food-free at last, Harrison can head home,

but leave your paws off the pulses in future, eh?

Bye.

Bye!

Next time on Operation Ouch...

We've got another awesome body trick for you to try.

Now try and stand up.

I'm stuck.

And we're going to look at some of our best bits from Ouch.

I don't know why everyone doesn't paint this way.

We'll see you next time for more...

Operation Ouch!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd