Why suppressing that sneeze can be dangerous
Stifling a sneeze can rupture your throat, burst an ear drum, or pop a blood vessel in your brain, researchers have warned.
Many people — when they feel a sneeze coming on — block all the exits, essentially swallowing the sneeze’s explosive force.
Just how dangerous this can be was illustrated when a 34-year-old man showed up at the emergency service of a hospital in Leicester, England, recently, with a swollen neck and in extreme pain.
“The patient described a popping sensation in his neck after he tried to halt a sneeze by pinching the nose and holding his mouth closed,” doctors detailed in a study published in the medical journal BMJ Case Reports.
A CAT scan confirmed what they suspected: The force of the suppressed sneeze had ruptured and torn open the back of the throat.
ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL
The man — who could barely swallow or talk — was admitted to hospital, where he was tube-fed and given intravenous antibiotics until the swelling and pain subsided.
He was discharged after a week.
“Halting sneezing via blocking the nostrils and mouth is a dangerous manoeuvre, and should be avoided,” the doctors concluded.
In rare cases, stifling a sneeze has led to a condition in which air gets trapped between the lungs, “and even rupture of a cerebral aneurysm,” which is a ballooning blood vessel in the brain, they explained.
Meanwhile, women who started menstruating at the age of 11 or younger, or entered menopause before 47, face a higher risk of heart disease and stroke, according to a study published today. Miscarriage, stillbirth, undergoing a hysterectomy, and bearing children at a young age were also associated with elevated odds of cardiovascular problems later in life, researchers found.
The additional risk varied from only a few percentage points to more than 40 per cent, they reported in the journal Heart.
CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP
The findings are not the first to uncover a link between reproductive factors and cardiovascular diseases, and the data do not show a causal relationship, the authors cautioned.
But their findings do strengthen the association, and suggest that women with premature reproductive cycles or a history of adverse events should be frequently screened for heart trouble and conditions leading to blood clots.
The scientists drew data from a long-term health survey in Britain that monitored and tested more than a quarter of a million women from 2006 to 2016. The women’s average age was 56 when monitoring began.
More than four out of five had been pregnant, and nearly half had two children.