Thanks to Babbel, a language learning app, for supporting this SciShow list show. As a SciShow viewer, you can use our link to grow your language skills with Babbel for up to 60% off and a 20 day money-back guarantee.
Sneezing is a part of life. Whether it’s from allergies or a cold, sneezing is your body’s natural reflex to remove stuff that shouldn’t be inside your nose. And it’s a pretty forceful eviction. When you sneeze, you’re exhaling a stream of air at up to 23 meters per second. That puts about 41 kg of force on your chest, which is similar to a mid-level intensity bench press. That much force can do drastic things to your body, from making you lose your hearing to increasing your blood pressure.
If that kind of thing makes you squeamish, you might need to watch this video through your fingers. These aren’t just stories your older sibling would tell you to freak you out during allergy season. Everything in this video has really happened to at least one person and been reported in peer reviewed academic journals. So get ready to learn about five of the weirdest things that have ever happened to people after a sneeze!
One of the most popular legends about sneezing is that it can pop your eye out of its socket, only to be left dangling on your cheek like you’re starring in the next zombie apocalypse movie. And we’ve already made a SciShow video generally debunking the idea that this can happen to you out of nowhere. But it turns out that a sneeze can dislocate your eye. It’s called a blow-out fracture, which, I know, sounds like exactly what I just told you doesn’t happen. But it just means that enough air has built up behind your eye socket to make the eye stick out a bit, not pop out entirely.
In one case, a 32 year old was seeking medical advice for their swollen eye. It was very much still in the socket, just, you know, kinda puffy. The air pressure from their sneeze was forceful enough to damage their orbital wall, which is made of the bones on the rim of the eye socket. So the top and bottom part of their eye socket was still intact, but the side was pushed a bit out of place. Normally, this kind of injury happens when you’ve been hit in the eye socket or you’ve banged your forehead against something. But this person’s eye started swelling after they just sneezed. While it’s definitely not comfortable, this is generally the kind of thing that sorts itself out within two weeks. And you won’t shoot your eye out.
Eye pain after a sneeze might not be a massive health concern. But chest pain that crawls up your neck and into your back for three hours is a horse of a different color. Especially when it affects your ability to breathe. That’s what happened to a 57 year old whose super-powered sneeze ended up tearing their aorta! You know, that really important artery on your heart where your blood flows out to the rest of your body?! Physicians suspect that this extreme response to sneezing was helped along by something called the Valsalva maneuver, which you’ve probably done before. If you plug your nose when you sneeze, you’re already familiar with it. When your sneeze is pushing air out while you clog its exits, it can increase your blood pressure even more than sneezing already does on its own. Like I mentioned earlier, sneezing exerts a lot of pressure. And plugging your nose just adds to it. But you don’t really want to mess around with your blood pressure because tearing your aorta could be fatal.
Luckily, not in this case. This person was given blood pressure medication and recovered, leaving them with quite the story to tell at dinner parties. For some people, that kind of event changes their whole approach to sneezing. This next lifelong nose-pinch-sneezer swore off the Valsalva maneuver after losing their hearing from a sneeze. When a 32 year old suppressed their sneeze, they likely created an explosive force on the inside of their ear at the tympanic membrane, leading one of their ear bones to break. The tympanic membrane is also known as the eardrum and is the barrier between the outside world and the delicate ear bones. This can cause hearing loss in the affected ear, and while it is rare to break or bruise the malleus bone via a sneeze, it has been reported multiple times in scientific journals. A lifetime of Valsalva maneuvers might even weaken the malleus by overpressurizing the inner ear, making one more susceptible to sneeze-related hearing loss. Fortunately, doctors can restore hearing by patching up the broken bone.
In another case, a 35-year-old patient experienced a laryngeal fracture, which is when some cartilage in the neck is broken, but not any of the bones in the spine. This is caused by increased air pressure, and the patient experienced this due to a “violent sneezing fit.” While it can be life-threatening, this case turned out to be mild and only required monitoring to make sure nothing escalated.
Finally, a 63 year old had inflamed sinuses and discovered one of their dental implants had found its way into their sinuses. Usually, surgery is required to remove the implant, but in this case, the patient sneezed it out two days after starting a course of medicine! The maxillary sinuses sit directly above the back molars, so as the implant migrated upwards, it ended up lodged in the sinuses. The implant had an escape route through the nose, and the patient was able to sneeze it out.
These case studies are nothing to sneeze at, but all of the people involved ended up okay with the same amount of bodily function they entered with. This is a triumphant tale in which the main character was better off after the sneeze! This story had a happy ending when the individual was able to cancel their surgery without any symptoms a week later. It turns out that sometimes a good stream of pressure is the solution you didn’t realize you needed for the problems that sneezing can cause. Most of the time, a sneeze is just another trip to wash your hands. The events talked about in this video are pretty rare, so there’s no need to worry about them.
If you want to learn a new language, Babbel is the #1 language learning app in the world. It includes games, podcasts, and live lessons with real teachers to keep you engaged while learning. Each lesson is just 10 minutes, so you can start building those language skills in just three weeks. As a SciShow viewer, you can get up to 60% off when you sign up using the link in the description. Plus, you can get 2 free classes with your subscription!