This is certainly not the most painful injury I’ve had, but that thread did inspire my sharing.
I usually brush my teeth before I get dressed, but this morning I ended up dressed before brushing. So I brush, brush, brush, but start to feel a huge sneeze approaching. I don’t want to spit toothpaste on my black wool suit, so I lean as far forward from the waist as I can in case there’s spewage.
Big sneeze . . . and RRRIP in my lower back. I was able to teach today, but was walking around like my butt was on sidways. I’m lying on an icepack right now and wishing the stupid Aleve were more powerful.
Ouch - I feel for you. Last time I threw my back out it was because I sneezed while bent over tying my shoe. It never happens in ordinary, hauled-heavy-boxes sort of ways, does it?
I hope you were able to get ice on it right away and take some aspirin. Feel better.
Hurting yourself while sneezing is understandable. Sneezes are violent! Don’t they cause you to expel air at 70mph or something like that? (Or that might be one of those silly myths I was taught as a kid…)
By the way, I still have a scar on my arm from a lovely cut I gave myself almost six months ago. From a vacuum cleaner. Dorky injuries abound.
My back is fine, but I went the other way and tore an abdominal muscle by sneezing. It woke me up, and I remember thinking “That’s going to hurt in the morning”. I was right.
I also once sneezed while shaving with a straight razor, but the bleeding stopped after an hour or so and there are no visible scars. To this day I can’t remember what cause me to try that in the first place.
Once, when I was recovering from a cold, I felt a coughing fit coming on while I was at the movie theater. It was a quiet part in the movie, and I didn’t want to annoy the other movie-goers. So I tried to stop myself from coughing, and ended up kind of couging inside my chest without actually letting the air out of my mouth. In the process I dislocated a rib. :smack:
I was going up a set of outdoor stairs at work and looked to the left to watch for approaching cars. Looking left was enough to through out my back.
The day before my wedding.
I had one of those sticky, chemical heating pads on through the ceremony, I was loaded up on ibuprofen and tylenol & I could barely make it through the ceremony. The guests probably thought those were tears of joy in my eyes.
If it helps, arguably America’s best mountain climber threw his back out with a sneeze. IIRC, he was on his way to an 8000 meter climb, grabbed a local bread, which was coated in flour, sneezed, and threw his back out.
My dad once put his back out by sneezing. And then he had the bright idea of laying down on the floor and doing a few stretches–worse spasms in his back. He spent days acting old and frail before he started feeling better.
My worst was when I was sitting on a toilet seat and twisting around to pick up a book on the back of the toilet. My back went “twang,” and I had to crawl to the bed.
[moderator hat on]
I fixed that for you.
[moderator hat off]
I did something similar recently. I sneezed as I was half way up in rising from a chair and it seemed to blow out something right between my shoulder blades. It was in a spot that I couldn’t stretch or relieve at all and I ended up needing massage and manipulation to fix it.
I also threw my back out with a sneeze in almost the exact same manner. Never bend over while sneezing!
The bonus to this is that later that day I went to pick up a heavy bag of cat litter at the pet store and the pain nearly caused me to pass out. I dropped the bag in the middle of the aisle and retreated to an isolated corner with my head between my legs, trying to make the stars go away. When I returned to my abandoned cat litter, someone had picked it up and returned it to the shelf from whence it came. Darn you, diligent store employees!
