heflix455

Just curious, considering the weight of my appendix, would it be cheaper to have it removed instead of going for a dura-ace group upgrade? I live in canada so im pretty sure its covered under my medical plan. My work also gives me 12 days a year for any doctors visits/medical procedures so im pretty sure i could heal in that amount of time. This is a half serious/half joking thread - Having it removed would save me money for more important things like titanium hardware.

gmason

I would think that having it removed without it being inflamed (or having some other problem) would be unethical, and no doctor with a license would do it.

rickhigbee

You, my friend, have just won the rickhigbee ultimate weight weenie award. I'd say more but I'm a little awestruck right now.

Psydotek

Well, Lance had a testicle removed and won the TdF 7 times. Is there a correlation? Perhaps.

Tourmalet

weight weenie! weight weenie!

Don't eat for two days.

Take a crap before you go cycling.

Get a lighter helmet.

Carry a slightly smaller water bottle.

There. Any one of those will yield the same weight loss.

rworsnop

Go for it; you won't regret it. I had both little fingers and my nose removed two years ago and have never looked back (and I still have my eyes, so I could if I wanted to!).

heflix455

But this is a permanent upgrade - i wont have to worry about carrying my smaller water bottle or taking a crap. I just hop on my bike and go - convenient and easy, the american way.

prendrefeu

Make sure to ask for the calcium-based sutures. They're .4x lighter than regular sutures, and they will be absorbed by your skin.

late

They recently discovered the appendix has a function. It's to help you recover from
stomach problems.

They have this procedure where they microwave your gut (seriously) and shove a stick in there and suck all the fat out around your gut. This they will do, but it doesn't cost as much as a Durace group....

It costs as much as a top of the line Colnago with Campy Record.

bikingMILF

how about going on a damn diet instead of chopping out body parts?

heflix455

pfffft this is america woman, i want the quick and easy way out. Seriously though, im pretty skinny already and im 6'5" so it would be easier to loose the appendix than drop some fat. Anyone ever looked into replacing bones with carbon fibre/titanium? How long do they last? Are they weaker than a regular bone?

heflix455

Im looking for the bargain basement weight weenie upgrades. Fat is easy enough to remove but its quite difficult to slim down my liver or bones with proper dieting and exercise.

DiabloScott

Had my appendix out a year ago exactly. (photo is not mine) Didn't make me any faster but I'm glad it's out of me.. that thing is gross and creepy. Looks like it might weigh one pound in the inflamed state.

Treefox

cut two fingers off each hand.

Ditch a kidney

remove one eye

remove your jaw bone - we all know gels are more easily absorbed anyhow.

Get rid of all your toes.

And get a lighter mobile phone.

sleazy

with a kidney and apendix gone... (and you could probably ditch a few feet of intestinal tract)

would the internal organs drop a bit and free up room behind the ribcage for more lung capacity?

its a win/win situation.

heflix455

i like your thinking. Also having everything move down would lower my center of gravity. What if i had my rib cage broken and had it reset so there would be more room in my chest cavity for lung growth. While they are in there they could probably remove a couple of ribs as well.

mihlbach

I teach gross anatomy to med students, and I've seen plenty of appendices (healty ones), and they are really pretty tiny...certainly no heavier than a foot or so of bar tape. Like sleazy suggested, you'll save more weight by removing a kidney, or some other part of your digestive tract. Theres a lot of stuff you could remove actually and still ride...like your tongue, earlobes, a few fingers and toes, teeth. Bone is pretty dense...you could actually remove part of the shaft of your fibula and still be able to walk/ride effectively. If you have part of your your fibula shaft removed, make sure you do both sides, or you'll wear one side of your tires faster than the other.
Also, I bet there is a way to have most of your skull cap removed and replaced with a carbon fiber dome of some sort.

permanentjaun

What happens when you remove something like the kidney or appendix? Does the body fill in the empty area with fat, and thus offsetting any weightloss you may have had?

mihlbach

Not much extra tissue really, at least in most cases. I've seen lots of cadavers with missing organs. The other organs usually just sort of squish into the empty space.

kensuf

If you sell a kidney you can buy two SRM's and a TT bike, plus save some weight!

jsonnabend

Who needs an ethical doctor? For that matter, a good bike mechanic could probably due the job for you . . .

srphm

i had mine removed, cant wait to win the tour with this advantage!

ratebeer

I bet removing some ribs would allow greater breaths by volume.

I wonder too if a good surgeon could change up the way your tendons attach to your knees so as to be cycling-advantageous (even if it makes standing upright for more than 60 seconds impossible).

mihlbach

No because your intercostal muscles (between your ribs) assist in breathing by moving your ribs to increase the volume of your thorax, thus allowing you to inhale. Your diapragm and abdimonal mucles assist in this as well. Removing ribs would still allow you to breath but it would diminish your ability to fluctuate lung capaticy, thus diminishing your breathing. Maybe the weight loss would outweight this negative effect, but I highly doubt it.

PDay

I heard theyre wanting kidneys on ebay, or was it craigslist? I think it was New York.