I thought this was only me until my friends asked why i say ouch or shrivel after sneezing.
Apparently its fairly common (amongst the people i know)
Why?
In: 3
It shouldn’t be painful to sneeze, so maybe you have something medical going on. Where exactly is the pain?
Ejecting anything out of your body with the velocity of a sneeze is going to cause some recoil. Recoil hurts. A sneeze is the forceful evacuation (via powerful spontaneous muscle contraction) of gas out of your lungs through your nose and mouth, containing some of the most sensitive tissues in your body, taking with it saliva, mucus, etc., things that can be accelerated to high speed before impacting your insides. Imagine a hard rain, or a strong ocean spray from a wave breaking; now, imagine that happening inside your sinuses. A big raindrop slapping your face at terminal velocity stings – imagine a million small snot droplets sprayed against the inside of your face. It’s like a shotgun in there. This is why you shouldn’t hold your nose for a sneeze, it’s a face explosion. Let it out.
The only time a sneeze hurts for me is when I’m getting sick. It’s always a tell in the early stages of a cold or flu – if I sneeze and it comes with a noticeable body ache, It’s a safe bet I’m coming down with something.
You could be fast tensing your muscles without proper support to eject the sneeze, try purposely tensing your core as you feel the sneeze coming to brace and see if that helps
I know someone who won’t sneeze and actively represses it every time. They said that one time they sneezed it was very painful so they never wanted to go through that again.
Not sure if it’s related but they had to have nasal polyps removed later on so perhaps that contributed to the pain?
The only time it hurts me to sneeze (other than the nose tingle) is when I’m having an asthma attack and there’s not enough room in my airways to push out all the air I’m trying to push out.
You should probably get checked out by a doctor. Sneezes shouldn’t hurt normally.
Do you have high blood pressure?
Sneezing and coughing hurts more when you do (AFAIK/IME).
If it’s in the groin, it’s a hernia. If it’s in your neck or your back, you may be dehydrated. Also if you are sneezing a LOT with like allergies or illness I’d say the muscles are just getting agitated.
UPDATE:
Spoke with my doctor about this since i saw all the comments and it gave me a big sp00kin,
I noticed it only happens when I’m not trying to be loud and make the sneeze as quiet as i can.
My doctor told me to sneeze at full force and not hold it in, no pain!
I was told not to do that and just let it out lol.
fwiw: the pain only ever hurt my shoulders and it was just kinda like i wanted to shrivel up into a ball, no serious pain.
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