Is this possible? (Total body-mod question)?

January 25, 2011 Dr. Mike 4 comments

Is it possible to get surgery and get a tail, and have it fully usable, just like if you were born with it?

Like, for example, would it be possible to, 1. Attach the tail in the first place, 2. Keep it healthy, in every sense of the word (as in having the body deliver nutrients, blood, etc.), and 3. Have it be fully functional, i.e. working nerve endings, proper working muscles to move it, etc.

And, I’m assuming, if this was somehow possible, that the skin cells on the surface of the tail could be made to grow hair in much the same way hair restoration works, yes?

Also, if it were possible… it’s obviously going to be expensive… but how much would the entire process cost?

I’m just curious… because I was reading about vestigial structures and how humans have tailbones similar to animals with… tails.

So, like, that means it’s possible, right?

hair loss products animals, hair restoration, muscles, nerve endings, nutrients, skin cells, vestigial structures

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Written by Mr. D about 1 year ago.

Well, it would depend on what kind of tail you want. Prehensile? I say that’s not possible. But a tail that simply wags? hmm…..

You would first have to install balloons that would stretch the skin (this skin would eventually cover the tail). The balloons would have to be slowly inflated so that the new skin growing over them could incorporate adequate blood supply. This would take a LONG time. (depending, of course, on how long you wanted your tail to be.) This skin would have feeling just like the rest of your skin.

The bones would likely be synthetic. That would simply be the easiest way. If you insisted on living bone, you would need even more blood supply.

Muscles to make it wag would be, I think, the impossible part. Best you could do would be some kind of wire system with a chip attached to the base that reads and interprets electrical signals from your spinal cord. You would, of course, have to go through long and arduous physical therapy in order to learn to control the tail.

Hair? Plugs.

Cost? ha ha ha ha ha ha ……….. (good luck finding surgeons to spend their time on this)

Basically, the best you could get, would be a robot tail covered with your skin. It would have minimal movement. It would be absurdly expensive, to the point that it’s laughable. And you would never find a team of surgeons and doctors willing to do it. (And it would take a team.)

but yeah, technically it’s possible.
Written by mairdo51 about 1 year ago.

There are four main problems:
1. They would have to grow the skin into a tail shape, since humans don’t have tails, and we aren’t genetically mixable with species that do. They can grow skin, but in the quantity you are asking for, the price would reach into the millions of dollars.
2. Although they might be able to make a bone structure out of platinum or something, it probably wouldn’t move unless it was real bone. So, they’d have to grow that too, which they can’t yet. I’d give that one about 30 years for good quality bones in any quality.
3. They would have to grow some sort of muscular system to let the tail move. They can’t do that yet, and probably won’t be able to pull that off for another 90 years, at which time it will still be insanely expensive.
4. They would have to somehow hook the muscular system up with your nervous system. Even if they have the muscles and bone in 90 years, coaxing not only working nerves, but nerves that hook up to the voluntary motor centers of the brain will take at least 200 more years. Then, in order to hook the nerves up to not only your voluntary motor center, but also your involuntary motor center (keeping balance and walking) would take so many years of research that I cannot even make an estimate.
Sorry to let you down.
Written by Faith about 1 year ago.

well it COULD be possible if you were able to either grow a tail in a test tube or find an animal that has genes similar enough to those of a human that anti-rejection drugs would work on it
then the blood vessels would need to be attached which would be an INCREDIBLY difficult and time consuming process.
then you would need a part of your brain to work it.

it would be EXTREMELY expensive, difficult and impractical.

and i have a hard enough time finding jeans that fit as it is =P
Written by Jimmy about 1 year ago.

I think it would be possible. It sounds similar to a type of phalloplasty where a woman gets a fully functional penis through skin grafts and muscle grafts and the transferring of useless bone from the leg.

I mean, if they can give a woman an extremity that can feel, move, become erecrt, ejaculate, etc. I reckon they could certainly give someone a tail.

However, I doubt it would be AS functional as a animal’s tail….

Also, the cost of a phalloplasty is generally $1000-1500 USD per session, and it usually takes 3 sessions…

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Is this possible? (Total body-mod question)?

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