Ever try and stifle a sneeze? You might want to think twice about it in the future after hearing this story.
The Daily Record reports a Scottish man in his 30s landed in the hospital in excruciating pain after he held his nose and closed his mouth in an effort to hold back a sneeze while driving.
While examining him, doctors noticed a cracking sound when they touched the man’s neck and he couldn’t control movement in that area. CT scans turned up a tiny tear in his windpipe.
The doctors concluded that the tear was caused by a “rapid build-up of pressure in the trachea while sneezing with a pinched nose and closed mouth”
He was released from the hospital after two days, given pain and hay-fever meds and warned against performing strenuous activities.
A followup visit three weeks later showed the tear had completely healed.