To induce vomiting or not to induce vomiting? It does irritate me that bleach for example says "do not induce vomiting" (with no explanation - I need an explanation or I won't obey). Well I'd ignore that and puke anyway. I do not want that stuff inside me. Better out than in.
Also, why do people find it hard to puke? I find it as easy as going to the toilet or coughing. I just lean over the sink and puke. No fingers in my throat or anything. It seems odd that people are not in control of their own body.
If it's caustic/corrosive, it will burn again on the way up. It may be better to neutralise it and allow it to continue through the digestic tract
If vomited there is a risk of inhalation into the lungs. Apart from the obvious risk of asphyxiation of vomit, some chemicals are *more* harmful when inhaled than when swallowed.
Your stomach can handle the small amount of swallowed bleach. We run into problems when people try to force vomiting, because they put themselves at risk for aspiration. Aspiration is the inhalation of either secretions from the back of the throat and nasal cavity or stomach contents into the lower airways of the lungs. This can potentially lead to an acute, chemical lung injury resulting from the inhalation of the contents.
When we vomit, there's a significant risk of unintentionally inhaling some of what we vomit. The acid in our stomach fluids is bad enough, and can produce pneumonia. However, certain poisonous substances can do much more serious damage, either to the lungs, or via rapid absorption directly into the circulation. Those poisons can still be very dangerous when swallowed, but are better managed (better outcomes) by non-vomiting medical protocols with far less risk of permanent damage or death.
The ease with which some people can vomit is usually related to how sensitive their gag reflex is. If it is quite sensitive, they are more likely to be able to vomit voluntarily. If their gag reflex is relatively insensitive, they may require certain medications or procedures to either induce vomiting or otherwise empty their stomachs.
If you believe you have accidentally ingested a poison, or are near someone who has, and there is no poisoning label on the container of the substance involved, and you are in the U.S., immediately call the national poison control hot line at: 1-800-222-1222.
If it was suspected poison which may need treatment (stomach washout or antidote) ASAP, I'd probably call 999 or its Europe-wide synonym 112 - the emergency number which should be answered very quickly, rather than the NHS number which may take a long time to be answered at busy times.
I've never head of anyone being able to vomit on demand, unless it is triggered by stimulation of the gag reflex (finger in throat), poisoning, illness (including eating something that has "gone off" or triggered by extreme disgust or shock (eg being confronted by a dead body). In the absence of those, being able to say to yourself "I think I'll puke" and having it happen sounds rather bizarre - although it could be yet another case of one of Commander Kinsey's tall tales.
With some substances, I seem to remember that they can damage the throat on the way up like I guess they do on the way down.
How much did you drink.
40 years ago I was in my apartment when a girl from upstairs knocked on the door. She had drunk bleach and she wanted my help. I had two poison lists in the medicine chest and neither listed bleach.
I called the poison hotline and the woman coudn't find it in her list either. She had to go find a doctor. And he said if you didn't drink much, not to worry (which is why it isn't in those lists.) I don't know what he would say if you'd drunk 8 ounces or more. Does anyone do that? Did you do that?
It turns out one roommate had some spare bleach and she put in in a milk botle. The second roommate came home and found the bleach sitting out. She thought it was milk so she put it in the refrigerator, The third one came home, saw the milk in the fridge and poured herself some. She only drank a little before she figured out it was not milk.
How did you manage to drink bleach? How much?
Because that's the way it is. That's the way most people are designed. Stomach acid is bad for your throat.
And your teeth. Check the teeth on an anorexic. At the very least after vomiting you should rinse your mouth with water until you can no longer taste the stomach acid.
If you get too good at vomiting, it will happen when you don't want it to. I know that anorexics still want to but I think there can be those who really don't want to anymore but it happens anyhow. I'm not sure of that.
There is a sphincter at the bottom of your throat that opens when you swallow but not most other times. There is a sphincter at the exit of your stomach, I think there is one between the small and large intestine, and there are two more at the end, one before the rectum, and one at the very end.
Every place you could use one. Now how did that happen? Was the absence of any one of these sphincters enough that people, or other animals that have them, died off before they could reproduce much?
Was it just chance gene mutation that put sphincters everywhere they could help and nowhere they couldn't? How many genes does it take to make a sphincter. How many to make 5?
If the absence of the one at the bottom of the throat is so important that those humans with it outlasted those without it, then it must be bad to vomit too much.
When I was about 65, I learned, without trying to learn, to reverse swallowing. Sometimes I'd eat meat and not cut or chew it well and it would get stuck going down my throat. Until I was 65 I'd cough and choike and try real hard to get it back up. But now I don't even have to think and the peristalsis reverses and it comes right up. Very convenient.
But this doesn't involve my stomach, only the esophagus.
I've never seen bleach that looks milky - ie cloudy white. Most chlorine and oxygen bleaches that I've seen (eg Domestos, and supermarket equivalents) are clear, a bit more viscous than water and slightly straw-coloured. They also have a very strong smell of chlorine (or something else that I've not identified, for oxygen bleaches) which is detectable the instant you unscrew the bottle cap.
I've always been intrigued that despite this, people manage to accidentally drink bleach, especially in quantities that can be harmful or fatal. I would imagine that chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) has a pretty strong taste as soon as it touches the tongue, before you go a far as swallowing.
I've never heard of reverse swallowing and being able to reverse an involuntary action like swallowing - once you've started the process, it happens without further voluntary control and (I would have thought) can't be consciously stopped or reversed. Maybe I too will have a "revelation" on or around my 65th birthday ;-)
So it is said. Seems like a waste of good food, but that's only my take on it. I presume, though, that they didn't just think "I'll puke" and it happened, but had to use a finger or a feather to trigger (and maintain) the gag reflex.
Apparently when "the enemy" was interrogating a prisoner of war, it was common practice to keep some dogshit handy in case the prisoner took a poison capsule to avoid revealing any secrets, so they could make the prisoner puke before the poison had taken effect. I've heard this said for both sides during WWII, and also for some other wars. I've also heard it said that prisoners who thought they might be interrogated would take an anti-emetic to try to nullify that if they were forced to take "the final solution".
I would presume that if the story is true, the anti-emetic and the poison capsules were both supplied as part of the "resistance against interrogation kit" - sort of "take capsule A if you are captured and are collected for interrogation, and take capsule B if you can't hold out any longer".
I'm not sure what quick-acting poison was typically used in prisoners' poison capsules. Cyanide?
Sometimes part woud get most of the way down my throat but it was still connected with a little bit I hadn't swallowed. Before I could do reverse swallowing, I'd try to grab what was in the back of my mouth and pull the whole thing up, but either it was so far back I couldn't grab it, or I ouldn't hold on tight enough to pull it out.
Maybe. ;-)
I can't do it just because I want to. There has to be food stuck in my throat, and soon after it dawns on me that it's stuck, it comes back up. Maybe I am about to try to cough it up but before I can try, it just gets delivered like in one of those pneumatic tube things. . No stomach acid or anything else comes with it. It's happened 4 or 5 times
I used the term but I just looked and "reverse swallowing" has a specific meaning unrelated to all that's above.
What is is meant by reverse peristalsis? Retroperistalsis is the reverse of the involuntary smooth muscle contractions of peristalsis. It usually occurs as a precursor to vomiting. Local irritation of the stomach, such as bacteria or food poisoning, activates the emetic center of the brain which in turn signals an imminent vomiting reflex.
Maybe I've learned how to do this when needed, and without the vomiting.
Utter nonsense. If you did that, every time you puked you'd end up choking on it. Funnily enough I've never done that.
Reflex to what? I don't puke up when I see something disgusting. I do if a dentist tries to work on my back two sets of teeth. But that's understandable, there shouldn't be large objects that far back in your mouth. The body thinks you're about to swallow something without chewing properly.
Yeah and that's a really memorable number. I'd just call 911 or 999 (depending on the country). After making them puke it up.
Nope, very easy to do. Similar to doing a shit or piss. As with those two, I need to be somewhere it's acceptable or my subconscious tries to stop me. I can't urinate on a carpet. I can only puke into a sink, outside, or into a toilet. It's quite easy, just lean over the sink or toilet and think of puking. Certainly easier than wiggling your ears.
Well since it's already gone down, no harm in it coming back up, and diluted by whatever was in your stomach too.
Never tried it. There's a smell to bleach which would make you know that's what it was even if it was in a mislabelled bottle.
Er.... seriously? A poison hotline and no bleach? It's hardly a rare chemical!
It's got Sodium Laurel something in it and I know that's bad. If it's in toothpaste it gives you ulcers.
As soon as the top was opened and the bottle was near her mouth she would have smelt chlorine. Was she utterly drunk at the time?
But not as bad as keeping something inside you that shouldn't be there. If I eat something and feel queasy, or someone informs me it's off, I puke it up. I do not want the next 24 hours sat on the toilet with diarrhea. You can always swallow a few gulps of water after puking to clean the throat. Anyway vodka burns my throat far more!
Mine are terrible, but that's the chocolate and booze.
Er no.... I'm good at whistling but it doesn't happen spontaneously.
No, they're there to stop anything coming up when your stomach is squeezing hard to digest. Not foolproof, you can think you're burping and end up with a bit of acid coming up, just as old people can fart and "follow through".
That sounds cool. But like wiggling your ear, how?! It's not possible for me to learn to wiggle my ear, because that muscle has never been used, so my brain doesn't know what nerve to activate. But puking, I've done it before autonomically, so I just do the same on purpose.
I didn't bring up ear wiggling, but I can do it. It took a month or two to learn, but only a total of an hour or two working on it, back when I was in high school. I have a friend who can wiggle just one ear, but I cant' do that.
I noticed what part of my scalp moved along with my ears maybe when I lifted my eyebrows, and I concentrated on that part of the scalp, and eventually I could move it.
I've tried to vomit when I felt queasy, but I couldn't do it I had to wait 2, 3 or 4 hours until I was sicker. Once I thought if I put my nose near a disgustingly dirty toilet, it would make me vomit**, but my house didn't have one like that. And it takes days to make one, more time than the 2, 3, or 4 hours. **I wanted to vomit because I feel much better afterwards, at least after the last time.
When I get sick like that, there's usually a second episode a couple hours later, and a 3rd 3 to 6 later. One time recently there was a fourth a total of 14 hours from the time I ate something I guess was bad. Then I felt okay.
Even if I knew how to vomit on command, I think I could do the first one, but I'd still have to wait for something to happen in my stomach to do the 2nd, 3rd, and, if there was one, 4th. You can't vomit what isn't there yet.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.