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Why You Shouldn't Stifle Your Sneeze (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In a season where colds are rife, holding your nose and closing your mouth might seem like a considerate alternative to an explosive "Achoo!" But doctors have warned of the dangers of such a move after a man was found to have ruptured the back of his throat when attempting to stifle a sneeze. Medics say the incident, which they detail in the British Medical Journal Case Reports, came to light when a 34-year old man arrived in A&E with a change to his voice, a swollen neck, pain when swallowing and a popping sensation in his neck after he pinched his nose to contain an expulsion. The team took scans of the man's neck to investigate and discovered bubbles of air in the tissues at the back of the throat, and in the neck from the base of the skull to halfway down the man's back. That, they say, suggested a tear had occurred at the back of the throat as a result of increased pressure from the stifled sneeze, leading to air collecting in his soft tissues. The authors warn that blocking the nostrils and mouth when sneezing is dangerous, noting that while tearing of the throat tissue is rare, it could result in a ruptured eardrum or even a brain aneurysm.
Strangers expect you to cover it. You can't hand out a URL to the article after you blast them with boogers. Well, you could try, but they'll think you are a, well, nerd, and some may even pop you one.
Table-ized A.I.
same thing.
What? Women don't get hyenias?
I find the most controllable and least painful way to handle an unwanted sneeze is to press the tongue against the roof of the mouth, in the same way as when you imitate a machine gun. It makes a weird noise but at least it works in private . . . is there a (safe) silent way to deal with a sneeze?
Sneeze in the inside of your elbow with it placed just above the nose. Whatever doesn't get absorbed by the clothes or arm, will get directed downward. This shouldn't be complicated, but apparently there's enough morons in the world where it needs to be taught. FFS
Life is not for the lazy.
The story explicitly says "such complications from sneezing were so uncommon that there was no evidence in general that individuals should not hold one in." -- the headline directly contradicts the story. Here's what we actually learn: There existed a single patient who tore the back of his throat, purportedly as part of stifling a sneeze. Okay.
I think Slashdot editors should not post stories about science if the headline is inaccurate or if they themselves lack the scientific literacy to evaluate the claims in the headline or the body of the story.
Embarrassing.
I think it's "if you drink pop rocks and coke at the same time, tell me where you got your liquified pop rocks".
#DeleteFacebook
Supposedly (according to Suetonius, IIRC), one of the Ceasars declared that it's OK to fart at dinner parties, after one of his guests hurt himself trying to hold one back so he wouldn't have to leave the room.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Try pushing the tip of your nose next time you're about to sneeze. On myself and the few people I've tested it on, it suppresses the sneeze. You won't feel that great after, but you won't sneeze.
From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense that there would be an "off" switch for a noisy and messy reflex like a sneeze. If you're hiding from a predator and don't have any way to suppress your sneeze, you die.
There is a much better alternate way to reduce a sneeze. Anyone paying attention will first notice an "about to sneeze" situation, and one aspect of that is an inhalation of air. All you need to do is close your throat to cut short the full inhalation. This can result in some temporary discomfort as your body continues to try to get air into the lungs, but the discomfort only lasts a moment because, after all, you are about to sneeze! Only now, because you restricted the amount of air involved, the actual sneeze can be legitimately described as "petite" --you won't have any reason to try to stifle it.
Regarding how to "close your throat", some practice might be useful. Start by saying "Ahhhhhhh", and attempt to break it into sections using throat muscles only (no tongue or lips). Once you are confident you can do that at will, you are ready --if you think of it fast enough-- to make all your sneezes petite.
To get hurt just sneeze normally. I pulled a damn back muscle once on a particularly large sneeze and it was nearly a pain in the ass for two weeks.
Maybe this is something Sesame Street could do in a PSA, with their character of 'The Count'. "Vun! Vun sneeze! Ah ah ah ah...choo!"
They are the ones that need "caution: hot, may cause burns" on drive-thru coffee cups?
You know that the old lady who got famous for that case was not driving, that the car wasn't moving, and that she got severe burns from the incident? Every time you parrot this hot coffee thing you're doing the dirty work of Karl Rove and his evil campaign to cap damages in civil cases.
https://www.democraticundergro...
lucm, indeed.
In what you universe is this "news that matters"?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
aren't your eyes supposed to pop out if you totally block a sneeze?
No but it happens quite often especially with the elderly to have small sections of the retina detach from the back of the eye, causing permanent blind spots.
lucm, indeed.
So one guy hurts himself and that means it's not safe for every single other person on the planet? It's still way better to just hold it in and not spread your germs.
It's.. coffee. Coffee is meant to be made with water around 91is degrees, 'off the boil', like black teas (greens are lower).
Now if some of you prefer to have your drinks sit there for a while and cool off, fine. When I ask for fresh coffee though, I'd expect it to still be cooling down to drinking temps. But no, personal responsibility is hard, coffee should be served lukewarm. People already suing over nacho cheese and pizza cheese though, so screw accountability.
Now if the cup had a fault and burst, or the staff had spilled it on her, sure. Not the case here though.
This is doubly useful because it also keeps effluvia off your mitts. Not nice if you are wearing short sleeves, though. Personally I use a big bandanna when I can. These come in handy for lots of stuff, including sneezes, but especially to dry my hands in places that lack towels. Also... Along the same lines... Hard honking nose blows can be counter productive -- albeit satisfying. The best method is to gently blow one nostril at a time while sealing the other. Hard blows actually send material deeper into the sinus cavity as well as out. IANAD, but I dated any number of nurses -- back in the day.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
"RIP in Peace" is redundant. Yes, standards have slipped a bit at Slashdot, mostly because of the 4chan ops which are designed to destroy the place. They haven't been successful, but the hassle has dissuaded a lot of the good people from posting as much.
But none of that means we should let our grammatical usage slip due to laziness, so you're on notice mister. Strike one.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In our country, people dont stifle the sneeze. Even they make some funny sounds with that sneeze. It's normal in my country
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A handkerchief might still be needed, even for a petite sneeze. And I know for a fact that not every sneeze is necessary; Google for [ sunlight sneeze ] (brackets represent search box) to find out about how, for some folks, a sneeze can be triggered by nothing more than a change in light levels. I can also tell you (from experience) that sometimes a petite sneeze is inadequate, and a second sneeze might happen right after the first. It turns out, though, that multiple petite sneezes can be as effective (but less physically painful) than a full-fledged ordinary sneeze.
4chan ops? Can you elaborate?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
In my experience, it's good to drink from the cup right after serving from the espresso machine (but I don't get it from McDonalds...); it's hot but not near boiling point. Using a ceramic cup helps to dissipate the heat.
Can confirm this works. A big sneeze can be really painful for me (arthritis and CFS) but this technique reduces it to something manageable.
You can also do some prevention to avoid getting to this point. Be careful trimming your nose hairs, because if you trim them too much they stop keeping the sneeze-inducing dust out. If you live in a place where masks are socially acceptable they really help. In places where people don't wear masks, blowing your nose it also effective.
I've tried various cleaning systems but they don't really help IME.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
My father got a hernia stifling a sneeze.
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
It's.. coffee. Coffee is meant to be made with water around 91is degrees
How you draw an espresso and what you put in your mouth are two very different things. Coffee is drawn at 91 degrees but pretty much as soon as it hits the bottom of the espresso mug it is safe to drink. Coffee made at home by percolator is not put in a pre-heated mug and also cools significantly the moment it is poured. Combine that with the fact that *most* coffee when served at restaurants or coffee shops is closer to 70 degrees when it's handed to you, and you have absolutely zero basis to expect your coffee to be that hot when you get it.
That's the whole reason McDonalds lost. Their coffee was far hotter than any reasonable expectation. You're right, personal responsibility is hard, especially when faced with something unknown and unexpected.
Now if the cup had a fault and burst, or the staff had spilled it on her, sure. Not the case here though.
And yet she spent 8 days in hospital from a cup of coffee which is in history unheard of. It's easy to see why the courts agreed with her that accountability, personal responsibility and expectation was that McDonalds did something very wrong. You simply wouldn't have sustained such an injury at any other restaurant.
Don't try to hold your poop and pee indefinitely. Slow news day eh Slashdot?
We'll make great pets
Not sure why this got modded down, it's on point. I would mod you up despite being AC.
We'll make great pets
Don't resist a sneeze, just go with it, if you want to minimize it. Open your mouth wide, open your throat, remove all obstructions. My sneezes this way just sound like loud fast exhalations. Instead of ah-choo it's a-hooo.
And do all this into your armpit. The loud part of the sneeze is the pressure buildup releasing. Don't provide any resistance, no pressure buildup. I bet it reduces droplet projection quite a lot to sneeze this way too.
To a lot of people this isn't even recognizable as a sneeze. They look at you like, "what just happened?"
--PM
That's the whole reason McDonalds lost. Their coffee was far hotter than any reasonable expectation.
That was part of it. The other part was that their own internal procedures forbade serving coffee at that temperature, because they engineered the cup the coffee went into and they knew that it would not hold up at that temperature, and that coffee is dangerous at that temperature. The local franchise operator willfully increased the pot hold temperature beyond the prescribed temperature in order to increase the pot hold time, which is what ultimately resulted in the injury to the woman's nether regions. This proved that they knew that they were in the wrong.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Decades ago, I taught myself to sneeze entirely through my mouth to prevent the nostril mess afterwards (adding the Dracula elbow in more recent times). Since I usually only sneeze "once at a time", I wonder about sneezing's effectiveness regarding/correlation with the nose. I've been studying the vagus nerve lately (it innervates SO much within the body), that I wonder whether IT is involved in sensing and dealing with pulmonary/esophageal irritation more than anything else...
Those same people voted a shaved orangutan with the mind of a 4 year old child in as "president" so apparently so.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Even if they weren't in the court order it emerged that McDonald's own practices were to serve coffee at 82-88C. Per American association standards It is normal to be served as low as 71C.
Tort law assumes fault based on reasonable expectations, and the caution hot coffee label actually predates the lawsuit. Starbucks and McDonalds both still serve coffee at that temperature and have compensated with ludicrously large warnings.
As a non-American travelling to America and finding the reason people like Starbucks over there is because there's nothing else resembling coffee to be found I almost choked the first time I drank some due to it being unexpectedly hot, and I've drank a lot of takeaway coffee over the years. Despite the warnings I nearly burnt myself on Starbucks coffee.
At McDonalds in the cafes with automated machines rather than percolators or in proper McCafes you will get served coffee that you can instantly put in your mouth when it's given to you.
Lots of people call it frivolous, but hey if someone does something unexpected to them, causing them over $10k worth of medical bills, and then throws a few hundred at em and tells em to go away I'm sure they'd sue too.
This is doubly useful because it also keeps effluvia off your mitts. Not nice if you are wearing short sleeves, though. Personally I use a big bandanna when I can. These come in handy for lots of stuff, including sneezes, but especially to dry my hands in places that lack towels. Also... Along the same lines... Hard honking nose blows can be counter productive -- albeit satisfying. The best method is to gently blow one nostril at a time while sealing the other. Hard blows actually send material deeper into the sinus cavity as well as out. IANAD, but I dated any number of nurses -- back in the day.
Best not to dry your hands with a bandanna which was previously used to contain a sneeze (unless it's been washed since, of course); it just transfers the germs to your hands - which was the whole point of using a bandanna in the first place!
I already have a ruptured right eardrum. If I suppress a sneeze it causes an astonishingly loud (only to me, I realize) and painful whistle. So my sneezes sound more like cannon shots.
Yeah, if you're giving it to someone else to use. You can't contaminate yourself with germs you expel from your own body. It's your hands you want to wash.
You still haven't read about this case. McDonald's had been warned several times about the danger and they ignored it. Their coffee was served much hotter than other places. Most coffee will not cause severe enough damage from an accidental spill to require skin grafts.
You need to find another example for an "all lawsuits are stupid" campaign.
When you sit at a meeting table and don't have a handkerchief nearby, the only options might be to suppress it, or take matter into your own hands, so to speak.
Even if they weren't in the court order it emerged that McDonald's own practices were to serve coffee at 82-88C. Per American association standards It is normal to be served as low as 71C.
Serve coffee that cold in most parts of Europe, and you will get the cup handed back to you. If you can't see tendrils dancing on the surface, it's just too cold.
If you don't want it serving hot, wait or blow on it. It's not arcane secret knowledge, but something everyone should be expected to know.
There is more than a social stigma there is a health hazard. A handkerchief is a bacteria haven.
The vast majority of the time you are sneezing because of nothing more than a foreign particle, in my experience a sneeze rarely resolves the issue and the issue would have never been an issue if you'd inhaled through the other perfectly acceptable portal of air intake, the mouth. The entire nose filtration mechanism is highly overrated.
Similarly, along with closing the throat you can push air up against the nasal passages just like you would when holding your breath or swimming to create pressure which prevents air/water from entering your nose.
Side effects include almost never sneezing (there is a limit but I suppose that functions as a pressure release valve to keep you from damaging your throat), anecdotally the same probability of a second sneeze attempt as going through with the sneeze, and people saying "you can't hold that in like that."
If you turned on the water in the sink of the bathroom and got third degree burns when you tested the temperature with your fingertip would you consider that an issue of personal responsibility?
"It's.. coffee. Coffee is meant to be made with water around 91is degrees"
91 degree liquid doesn't cause burns.
hey that's mean and juvenile, orangutans are intelligent and noble primates
oh, you mean these facts? "On February 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee from the drive-through window of a local McDonald's restaurant located at 5001 Gibson Boulevard Southeast. Liebeck was in the passenger's seat of a 1989 Ford Probe which did not have cup holders. Her grandson parked the car so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. Liebeck placed the coffee cup between her knees and pulled the far side of the lid toward her to remove it. In the process, she spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap.[10] Liebeck was wearing cotton sweatpants; they absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin, scalding her thighs, buttocks, and groin"
what a dumb-ass
bullshit, I know all the facts and the woman was a god damned moron.
"On February 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee from the drive-through window of a local McDonald's restaurant located at 5001 Gibson Boulevard Southeast. Liebeck was in the passenger's seat of a 1989 Ford Probe which did not have cup holders. Her grandson parked the car so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. Liebeck placed the coffee cup between her knees and pulled the far side of the lid toward her to remove it. In the process, she spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap.[10] Liebeck was wearing cotton sweatpants; they absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin, scalding her thighs, buttocks, and groin"
that's 91 degrees C, which is f'ing hot.
the woman put the cup between her legs and pulled the top off toward herself, getting exactly what she deserved.
Yeah, if you're giving it to someone else to use. You can't contaminate yourself with germs you expel from your own body. It's your hands you want to wash.
The point is that if you have germs on your hands (even if it's your own germs), you will pass them on - touching door handles, faucet handles, shaking hands, etc. You obviously do want to wash your hands soon.
When I was a missionary in Brazil, it was a mission rule to carry trial size containers of hand sanitizer.
If you don't want it serving hot, wait or blow on it. It's not arcane secret knowledge, but something everyone should be expected to know.
That's okay when you're in a civilized country that uses ceramic cups. When you get into some shithole that uses a lot of styrofoam, you have to turn down the temps because the cup doesn't maintain its rigidity otherwise. McDonalds knew this because they engineered both the coffee and the cup, which is part of the reason for their recommended serving temperature.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Serve coffee that cold in most parts of Europe, and you will get the cup handed back to you.
Erm no, no you don't. Firstly there's no way to draw an espresso into a cup that won't result it being around 75deg that doesn't also involve the server burning his hands, and secondly everywhere in Europe I've ordered a coffee I've been able to drink it when served, not some arbitrary cooling period after. If your coffee is higher than 75 you're not going to be able to taste much for the following few days.
If you don't want it serving hot, wait or blow on it. It's not arcane secret knowledge, but something everyone should be expected to know.
Blow on it? What kind of animal are you. You sound like you live in a messed up part of Europe. You should come over here, the country with the largest per capita coffee consumption in the world by a significant margin where we can show you how it's done properly.
Sounds like good advice. But then my very loud sneezes will wake up my wife. :-(
I didn't know this was a thing. I just do it anyway. That way I'm not sneezing into my hands and then getting that sneeze all over the subway poles I touch, door handles, etc.
Sneezing into your elbow pit just contains the damage and unless someone grabs your arms before you get a chance to wash them, contains the problem.
I see others have discovered if you don't inhale the sneeze is pre-stifled. I can't totally close my throat so I have to pinch my nose anyway. I do find that the diaphragm spasm trying to inhale is painful and someone with brittle bones could fracture their ribs.
I have also pulled a back muscle sneezing while twisting my body to the side while sneezing. Being I am retired at home I just get my shoulders straight, hug my ribs, and let it go.
Well duh.
Why would I dry my hands with a banana?
Well duh. Why would I dry my hands with a banana?
Look at the parent post by bdwoolman:
This is doubly useful because it also keeps effluvia off your mitts. Not nice if you are wearing short sleeves, though. Personally I use a big bandanna when I can. These come in handy for lots of stuff, including sneezes, but especially to dry my hands in places that lack towels
Being ./ I couldn't tell if sarcasm was included or not.