No Snoozing with Sneezes ©

Most people that know me, will at some point comment about my sneezing. My record has now exceeded 30 sneezes in a row.

I've had well-meaning friends suggest I try to somehow contain them and force them into smaller sneezes. When I do that, I usually sneeze twice as many times.

Occasionally I will respond with the true story about people who have blown their noses so vigorously, that they've cracked the bony cavity in their skull, in which their eyeball sits. There was a case where a woman blew her nose so forcefully that it forced air through the created crack into her skull, and the air eventually made its way into the woman's chest cavity leading to serious pain and discomfort.


Another weird and thankfully rare side effect of over-exuberant nose-blowing led to a case where the air and germs were forced through the crack in the bony cavity into the skull and developed into an infection which made the patient to go blind. In most cases though, if a crack does develop in the bony cavity of the eye, it usually heals within a fortnight.

But if going blind doesn't worry you, then consider the Japanese man whose excessive nose-blowing led to over-pressurisation of his inner ears which resulted in the man going deaf.

While my sneezing prowess may not be such a remarkable ability, it has led to some development in other areas of my life, including my ability to hold in the contents of my bladder while driving and sneezing at the same time.

Then there's a skill I developed a number of years after a near smash with a wall on a curve on a freeway. This had happened while I was endeavouring to drive during a particularly fervent sneezing fit. After that scary near-miss I then developed the ability to keep my eyes open whilst sneezing.

Another thing I learned to do when riding my old motor-bike, was the "slide and flick technique." As soon as I felt a sneeze coming on, I'd slide my hand up to my visor and flick it open. As you can imagine, I had to open the visor so that I could see through the plastic after I'd finished sneezing.

All year round I have sinus issues and mega-sneezes - I've figured – what's the point in doing a half-hearted job anyway, not like those wooses who only get hay-fever in spring-time. There's one thing that most people I know will agree, you certainly can't sneeze at my sneezing ability. ©