WEBVTT - Can Your Eyes Pop Out Of Your Head When You Sneeze?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey, they're

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<v Speaker 1>brain stuff. It's Christian Seger. If you're a person who

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<v Speaker 1>has a nose and eyeballs, you've probably noticed that when

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<v Speaker 1>you sneeze, your eyelids naturally snap shut. It's the reason

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<v Speaker 1>that sneezing while driving is a terrifying roulette game of death.

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<v Speaker 1>But I've got a question for you. When you were

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<v Speaker 1>a kid, did you hear the story that if you

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<v Speaker 1>managed to resist this reflex and hold your eyes open

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<v Speaker 1>during a sneeze, that they would pop out of your head?

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<v Speaker 1>I did. In fact, my ninth grade science teacher, Mrs

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<v Speaker 1>Abraham told me this is it true? Though? Well short answer,

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<v Speaker 1>almost definitely not. But unfortunately we can't be as perfectly

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<v Speaker 1>certain as we would all like to be about this

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<v Speaker 1>particular topic. So here are the facts. Fact one, your

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<v Speaker 1>eyes can pop out of their sockets. It's not very common,

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<v Speaker 1>but it can happen. Doctors call anterior bulging of the

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<v Speaker 1>eye beyond its normal orbit a case of exophthalamus. If

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<v Speaker 1>the eyeball gets dislocated from its socket enough that its

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<v Speaker 1>equator is literally outside your retracted eyelids, this is known

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<v Speaker 1>as globe luxation. Fact number two. If you want to

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<v Speaker 1>sleep soundly tonight and really every other night for the

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<v Speaker 1>rest of your life, you should not search the web

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<v Speaker 1>for images of globe luxation. Fact number three. Globe luxation

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<v Speaker 1>is rare, but it can be caused by a number

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<v Speaker 1>of conditions. Of course, gouging at an eyeball with a

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<v Speaker 1>finger or another instrument that will do it. Some various

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<v Speaker 1>types of traumatic head injury can cause the eyeballs to

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<v Speaker 1>pop out of their sockets. Many cases of spontaneous globe

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<v Speaker 1>luxation in the medical literature have happened while the eye

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<v Speaker 1>was being messed with in some ways, such as during

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<v Speaker 1>the application of a contact lens or eye drops, or

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<v Speaker 1>when a doctor was manipulating the eyelids during an exam.

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<v Speaker 1>Violent vomiting has also been cited as a cause of

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<v Speaker 1>eyeball dislocation. And I might add that whoever this refers

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<v Speaker 1>to has my sympathies, because that sounds like the worst

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<v Speaker 1>day ever. Now, if we are to believe our historical sources,

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<v Speaker 1>there may have been a few cases where a sneeze

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<v Speaker 1>knocked somebody's eyeball out. For example, in April of eighteen

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<v Speaker 1>eighty two, a US newspaper reported that a woman on

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<v Speaker 1>a street car in Indianapolis burst one of her eyeballs

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<v Speaker 1>in the middle of a sneezing fit. Whether this means

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<v Speaker 1>she suffered globe luxation, or that her eyeball just up

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<v Speaker 1>and exploded, or that journalists in the eighteen eighties sometimes

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<v Speaker 1>reported rather dubious stories, look, it's hard to say, but

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<v Speaker 1>if we look at the more recent sources. A two

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<v Speaker 1>thousand two ophthalmology study reviewed the twenty six cases of

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<v Speaker 1>spontaneous globe luxation then known to the medical world. While

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<v Speaker 1>most of the cases they found were triggered by manipulation

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<v Speaker 1>of the eyelids, the authors did also claim that a

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<v Speaker 1>small number were odd on by other triggers, including things

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<v Speaker 1>like crying, coughing, nose blowing, bending over, and yes, sneezing.

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<v Speaker 1>So sneezing might have caused the dislocation of the eyeball

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<v Speaker 1>in a very very small number of known cases. But

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<v Speaker 1>does keeping your eyes open during the sneeze have anything

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<v Speaker 1>to do with it? As I said before, almost definitely not.

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<v Speaker 1>And it's certainly true that eyeball dislocation doesn't happen every

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<v Speaker 1>time you sneeze with your eyes open, because you can

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<v Speaker 1>go to YouTube right now and look up videos of

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<v Speaker 1>people sneezing with their eyes open. It's not easy, but

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<v Speaker 1>some people can do it and their eyeballs are They're fine,

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<v Speaker 1>and they seem to enjoy showing off this disgusting trick.

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<v Speaker 1>But the complete lack of correlation between open eyes and

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<v Speaker 1>eyeball poppage is a combination of the fact that sneezing

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<v Speaker 1>almost never, if ever, causes the eyes to pop out,

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<v Speaker 1>and the fact that your eyelids don't really do any

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<v Speaker 1>of the work of keeping your eyeballs in their sockets

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<v Speaker 1>to begin with. Instead, your eyeballs are primarily held in

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<v Speaker 1>place by a combination of six muscles known as the

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<v Speaker 1>extra ocular muscles. They control the movements of the eyes

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<v Speaker 1>and are much stronger than the eyelids. So whether or

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<v Speaker 1>not you can manage to keep your eyes open during

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<v Speaker 1>a sneeze probably has little to no effect on the

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<v Speaker 1>chances that your eyes will pop out, and those chances

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<v Speaker 1>are very very slim in the first place, though possibly

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<v Speaker 1>not zero. Take that, Mrs Abraham check out the brainstuff

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<v Speaker 1>channel on YouTube, and for more on this and thousands

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<v Speaker 1>of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.