Talk:Signs and symptoms of radiation poisoning

The

The ref pointed to doesn't appear to be particularly authoritative... can someone supply a better reference?

causes of death

there aren't any actual "causes of death" in the causes of death section.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.92.97.114 (talk) 12:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I changed the title of the section to "Prognosis" to address this, since, as you said, the section doesn't actually say what the causes of death are but merely states the end result of the poisoning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.123.220.187 (talk) 01:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Explanation of phenomenon

An explanation of how this works would be good. I find it somewhat counterintuitive that after being fatally poisoned and manifesting symptoms, people could go back to apparently functioning fine, and then abruptly die. Like, how does it work? The article is kind of lacking without this information. --24.184.131.16 (talk) 15:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this would be really useful for this stub article. Tempshill (talk) 00:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The way I understand it, the bone marrow cells are very easily destroyed by ionizing radiation; in turn, stem cell production gets very low or halts, preventing the body from renewing its damaged cells. So whenever you receive a sufficient dose of radiation, you cannot produce any new cells and replace the cells that are used up or destroyed (as part of the natural 'life cycle' of some of your body's cells). Imagine running a very large factory without any spare parts at all; it will eventually break down and stop running. Basically, your body would quickly run out of cells that have the shortest life span: red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, cells of the gastrointestinal tract, epithelial cells/skin cells, etc. Some of these cells are completely replaced every few weeks. The effect on the body is predictable: internal bleedings in the gut (epithelial cells dying), inability to absorb nutrients and food / bloody diarrhea, skin lesions/ulceration/hair loss (skin cells), anemia (red blood cells), bruisings and internal/external bleedings (platelets), major infections (white blood cells). Note that NONE of these effects are reversible, since the body has lost the ability of repairing any damage; you just cannot heal anymore. Survival rate (in days) would depend on additional injuries suffered around the time of radiation exposure (e.g. skin burns, concussion injuries, etc) and access to proper medical care (IV feeding, pain relief medication). You can find similar symptoms in people who, as part of a leukemia treatment, have their bone marrow "wiped out" but whose bone marrow transplant later fail. The prognosis is very bleak. 70.83.220.148 (talk) 05:52, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Ghost who Walks

Wasnt the "Phantom" known as the Ghost who walks? Am I to belive that he was indeed a walking ghost? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.94.54.14 (talk) 03:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

One would assume the Phantom was called such because he could move about virtually undetected, as stealthily as a ghost. It's highly unlikely the name implies he's in the Walking Ghost phase of radiation exposure, given that

• The character has never absorbed a lethal amount of radiation,
• The character was created before the effects of radiation were well known, and
• Even assuming a floating timeline, his career has probably lasted more than a week and he has not died a painful, delerious death. --137.122.79.188 (talk) 02:20, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

terminology

In the other languages, the original "walking ghost phase" title is still kept. I have to think that "biological timeline of radiation poisoning" might be a list of phases of radiation poisoning symptoms, but it's hardly an accurate title for this article as described in the first paragraph (as in, "The Biological timeline of radiation poisoning describes the phenomenon where, following a dose of ionizing radiation, a person may have a period of apparent health, lasting for days or weeks".... )

A timeline is not a phenomenon, it's a timeline.--128.194.196.13 (talk) 23:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Immediate Effects in conflict with another Wiki page

I noticed that the page that the immediate effects section says to also see is in conflict with the list of immediate effects with doses in Gray. According to the other page vomiting and other GI symptoms normally don't appear until 6 Gy, and neurological symptoms don't appear until above 10 but more likely 30 Gy. This is in direct conflict with this page which has GI symptoms starting at the so called "moderate" levels from 2-3.5 Gy, and the obvious neurological symptoms starting at 5.5 Gy. Also, the time after the dose when vomiting start does not appear to be right, it is odd that moderate (2-3.5 Gy) starts vomiting after 12 hours, but the next rung, sever (3.5-5.5 Gy), starts vomiting BEFORE 1 hour. This leaves the time between 1-12 hours for initial symptoms to be very ambiguous as related to the dose level. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.160.143.133 (talk) 04:06, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I propose that this article: Biological timeline of radiation poisoning be merged into Acute radiation syndrome. I think that the content in this article can easily be explained in the context of "Acute radiation syndrome" as they are primarily talking about the same thing. This article is of a reasonable size that merging "Biological timeline of radiation poisoning" into the "Acute radiation syndrome" will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. 81.132.7.122 (talk) 11:22, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

This page is not just about short term but also long term effects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:13, 14 March 2018 (UTC)