• Home
    • AHTA Mission
    • Contact AHTA
  • AHTA News
    • AHTA Donations & Foundraising
  • AHTA Programs for Members and Clients
    • Membership Application & Information
    • Client Assistance Application & Program
  • AHTA Officers
    • AHTA Members
  • Journey, The Leech-Way!
    • Journey, pg. 2
    • Journey, pg. 3
    • Journey, pg. 4
  • News

The effect of Hirudotherapy:

The first 30 minutes of hirudo medicinalis application...
Please watch the informative video below. It is in the Russian language for now; however, it is very self-explanatory. The picture represents an attachment of medicinal leech, moment of 1 & 1/2  millimenter-deep incision and an input of  biologically active substances from the leech's salivary glands secretion. From the beginning of a bite, multi functioning salivary secretions play an important role. An anasthetic (discovered by Lenggenhager in 1936) prepares the area for a bite, while other secretions maximize penetration and flow of blood by dilation of blood vessels and anticoagulants prevent the coagulation of the blood. 
 
The input of hirudo substances starts immediately through lymphatic capillaries, body tissues,  and capillaries, into the blood stream of veins and arteries. Due to this process, later on, we observe an improvement of micro circulation  stimulation of lymphatic drainage, regeneration of blood vessels and the metabolic process and an overall immune system improvement. The skin gains elasticity, wrinkles are disappearing and cellulite are stop forming. 

What happens next after the leech's detachment?  

Picture
CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

The images with blood circulatory system in human body will help you to visualize the flow -- of hirudosubstances such as Hirudin, a major anticoagulant inhibitor, and other inhibitors, such as bdelins and eglins, histamine-like vasodilators, antibiotics, other enzymes and other bioactive agents from medicinal leech's salivary  glands  that are secreted into and throughout 
the body tissues and circulatory system. 

This interaction within body is supported by another enzyme, Hyaluronidase, so called spreading factor. Hyaluronidase is responsible for a rather quick distribution throughout the body of all bioactive hirudo-substances, with leading anticoagulant-Hirudin, during the leeches application and 24 hours or beyond, after the leech's detachment. The spreading factor maximizes penetration of the secretions around the bite and around the body, while the disbursement process of  bioactive enzymes and inhibitors continues, and could reach as much as 14 000 square centimeters of the entire body's skin area!
For the first time the experiment was performed with India inck injected into the skin of a shaved rabbit (from A. Claude 1937) with leech-hirudo extract. 
Just for your information: the human body's largest organ is the skin; its area is 2 square meters which equals to 20,000 square centimeters.
(T-B-C)

   Copyright © 2012 - 2014   The American HIRUDOTHERAPY Association   All rights reserved