Best not to hold in that sneeze

With cases of flu continuing to rise in Canada, there’s likely a whole lot of “achooing” going on across the country. But ear, nose and throat doctors advise against trying to stifle those sneezes, as such suppression can in rare cases lead to injuries.

One of the most serious is detailed in the journal BMJ Case Reports, in which a 34-year-old man from the U.K. ruptured his throat after pinching his nose and clamping his mouth shut to contain a forceful sneeze.

In the BMJ case report, authors point out that thwarting a sneeze — the body’s attempt to eliminate such irritants as mucus or allergens in the nose — could conceivably rupture an undetected aneurysm, or ballooning blood vessel, in the brain. Even without being impeded, sneezing has been known to cause injuries, said Dr. Eric Monteiro, an ENT at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

“There have been reports of elderly women who develop brittle bones in osteoporosis, developing vertebral compression fractures as a result of sneezing,” he said. So is there a right way to sneeze? Not really, said Monteiro, explaining that sneezing is an involuntary protective reflex that can’t necessarily be controlled. “But I think there is a wrong way, which is trying to plug your nose and close your mouth, which is just generally not recommended because you inhibit the natural process,” he said.