When mucus, an allergen, or an object like an insect gets into our nose, the body’s instinct is to get rid of it immediately, via a sneeze. The diaphragm and the muscles between our ribs contract to expel whatever’s in our nose. It’s an automatic (and largely uncontrollable) reflex, designed to keep our airway open.
A sneeze is also very powerful. Depending on the size of your nose and your lung capacity, the force is between 100 and 500 miles an hour! But holding the nose, or closing the mouth, means that all that air can’t escape, so it has to go somewhere else, which could cause unexpected damage.
“If you try to suppress the velocity of air coming up from the lungs, then you could cause damage to the middle ear, which is where the hearing bones are,” cautions Jeffery Gallups, MD, founder and director of The ENT Institute in Atlanta. The force of the air being pushed at speed into the Eustachian tubes can affect the ear drum and the small bones that vibrate when we hear sounds.
If you have an underlying condition, including osteoporosis or an existing brain aneurysm, complications are a possibility from an uninhibited sneeze. But Dr. Gallups believes reports of serious injuries from sneezing are likely to be speculation.
When a cold strikes, take action quickly to stop the cold in its tracks and manage your cold symptoms effectively. But there’s no surefire way to ward off a sneeze either, so if you simply must let rip, do consider those around you. Sneeze into a tissue or the crook of your elbow, dispose of the tissue immediately, and wash your hands to get rid of germs.
from Reader's Digest http://ift.tt/2kk74tg
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