Saline
A mixture of water and salt, which is used to replace body fluids.
Saliva
The fluids that flows into your mouth from your salivary
glands and the mucous membrane inside your mouth. It makes swallowing
easier as it makes the food mushy.
Scab
A crust that forms on your skin or a mucous membrane if you’ve been injured. It’s made up of clotted blood and pus.
Scapula
The medical name for your shoulder blade.
Scar
A mark that’s left on your skin after an injury.
Sclerotherapy
A method of shrivelling up blood vessels by injecting a medicine.
-scopy
A test that let the doctor look at part of your body.
There are lots of different types of test, like a gastroscopy which
involves your stomach and a cystoscopy which involves your bladder.
Scrotum
The scrotum is part of the male genitals. It is a soft
muscular pouch that sits underneath the penis. It holds the testicles,
which are two small sacs that produce and hold sperm and hormones.
Sedation
A way of making you very sleepy, usually before and during a test or procedure.
Seizure
Seizures can seem very frightening, both for your and
your friends and family. They make some people shake a lot and others
stay very still. Your brain is a lot like a computer - it has lots of
electricity flowing through it. Sometimes there's too much power and
everything short-circuits - that's what happens when you have a seizure.
Sepsis
Infection of a wound by bacteria, which leads to pus forming.
Shock
When you’re in shock, the amount of blood flowing around
your body drops suddenly which can make you unconscious. It usually
happens after severe illness or injury.
Shunt
A passage created to drain liquid from one part of the
body to another. Shunts are used to treat a condition called
hydrocephalus where there is too much fluid around the brain.
Sibling
Another word for your brother or sister.
Skeleton
Our skeleton is what keeps us all in one piece – it's a
bit like scaffolding. It's made up of over 200 bones, which range in
size from the tiny bones in our ear, to large bones like our thighbones.
Small bowel
This is part of your intestines and is about six metres
long! It's all coiled up inside your abdomen. The small bowel's job is
to remove the goodness from your food so that it can be absorbed by your
body.
Sneezing
When you want to sneeze, nothing will stop it! It’s a response to something irritating your nose or airway.
Snoring
If you breathe very noisily when you’re asleep, this is called snoring.
Spasm
This is when one of your muscles contracts (squeezes) suddenly. Some types of spasms include hiccups and cramps.
Sphincter
A ring of muscle at the entrance or exit of an organ.
There’s a sphincter at the top of your stomach, which stops what you’ve
eaten flowing back up your foodpipe.
Spinal cord
This is part of your central nervous system. Your spinal
cord is about 45cm long and about as thick as your finger. Messages to
and from your brain travel down the cord before being passed on to other
parts of your body.
Spleen
Your spleen is where red blood cells that are worn out and destroyed. It’s also part of your immune system.
Splint
A method of keeping part of your body in one place while
it heals. For instance, if you break a finger, it may be splinted to
the next finger to keep it in one place so you can’t bend it until it
heals.
Sprain
If you ‘go over’ on your ankle, you could sprain it.
This means you’ve torn or stretched the ligaments that hold the joint
together. A sprain is very painful and will probably swell up a lot. You
should put ice on the area to reduce the swelling and rest it until it
doesn’t hurt anymore.
Sputum
Mucus that is coughed up from your windpipe. It’s also
called phlegm. If your sputum is yellow or green this could mean you
have an infection.
Stem cells
These are cells found within the body that do not have a
set purpose. Most other cells have a task that their body needs them to
do. Stem cells are thought to have lots of potential in helping people
to recover from illness but scientists are still perfecting how this may
happen.
Stoma
This is an opening that is created in a patient’s side
so that waste which cannot be removed naturally (either through the
colon or by the kidneys) can be expelled.
Stomach
This is a bag of muscle under your ribcage, where food
and drink is digested. It's full of really strong acid that turns your
food and drink into a mushy liquid so that the goodness in it can be
taken out.
Subcutaneous
A type of injection that is given under the skin.
Suppository
Some medicines can’t be swallowed and need to be
absorbed into the body another way. Suppositories are put up your bottom
where they dissolve and are absorbed through the blood vessels in your
rectum.
Suture
Another word for stitch. After an operation, the surgeon
will stitch up the wound to let it heal properly. The stitches are
called sutures.
Symptom
A sign of a disease or condition that the patient notices and reports to a doctor.
Syndrome
A collection of symptoms.
