Everyone who likes to pick their noses will suffer 4 consequences sooner or later, I advise you to be merciful

When it comes to "overwhelming" personal idiosyncrasies, "nose picking" deserves a nomination. But the news reported that a 15-year-old girl who picked her nose nearly died.

One of the hobbies of 15-year-old Xiaohua from Shenzhen is to pick her nostrils, as if possessed by a demon, and sometimes even dig out secretions with blood scabs.

One morning, Xiao Hua, who woke up drowsily, felt pain and itching in her nose. When she touched it, she found pustules in her nose. Xiao Hua directly squeezed the pustule with her hands , and finally washed it with water.

As a result, Xiaohua suddenly developed a fever not long after , and the antipyretics did not work. In the early morning of the second day, one of her cheeks and eyes were abnormally swollen , and she could no longer open her eyes. Xiaohua's parents sent her to the hospital, where she ended up in the ENT department.

The doctor said that the pustules growing in the nasal cavity were not acne, but nasal vestibular furuncles caused by frequent nostril picking . Xiaohua's violent treatment caused the pus from the boil to flow retrogradely to the brain, causing intracranial infection . Now it has developed into cavernous sinus thrombophlebitis . The situation is serious and there is a risk of blindness or death.

Fortunately, the diagnosis was made immediately, and relevant anti-infection and anti-inflammatory treatments were taken in time. Xiaohua finally recovered and was discharged from the hospital after more than half a month.

1. Do you pick your nose involuntarily?

Picking noses, ears, and navels are the three major "pleasures" that most people can learn without a teacher.

In 1995, researchers from the United States conducted a survey on "nose-picking habits" among 1,000 adults, and received a total of 254 valid questionnaires, of which 91% admitted that they had the habit of picking their noses, and 3 people also admitted that they had the habit of picking their noses. Pick your nose every hour .

In a study in India, 200 survey data from teenagers were collected, and it was found that 96.5% of them would admit that they had picked their noses, an average of 4 times a day, and 9 people had even tasted picks from their nostrils. The "snacks" that came out.

How did the "snacks" in the nasal cavity come from? In fact, the nasal cavity is equivalent to an air purifier. Nose hair helps filter large particles in the air, and the nasal cavity also secretes mucus to adhere to smaller microorganisms and dust in the air.

The human nasal cavity secretes about 500 to 1000ml of mucus every day , and most of it is swallowed into the stomach after being sent to the throat. Because the mucus contains lysozyme and stomach acid, it will remove impurities and germs.

The remaining small amount of nasal mucus will stay in the nasal cavity, and will also be "air-dried" during the process of absorbing dust and bacteria in the air, eventually forming a unique "snack" in the nasal cavity-booger.

Because dry boogers always block the nasal passages and easily irritate the nasal mucosa and cause itching , people can't help but pick their nostrils with their hands because of physiological needs.

Of course, there are also some people who are addicted to nose picking, which is a mental disorder and a manifestation of "compulsive nose picking and hair pulling syndrome" .

2. What might happen to everyone who likes to pick their noses?

The nose is just in the center of the dangerous triangle of the face , surrounded by extremely dense and complex blood vessels, and is also connected to our intracranial blood vessels and nerves, but our fingers are not clean, especially tens of thousands of blood vessels may be hidden in the nails. If you frequently pick your nostrils with your hands at this time, the risk is actually extremely high.

Risk 1: Intracranial infection

When digging the nostrils with hands, the bacteria in the fingernails will also enter the nasal cavity, especially the hard nails will scratch the nasal mucosa. At this time, it is easy to cause nasal infection, and the purulent infection of the nasal cavity is easy to retrograde to the intracranial, eventually Cause intracranial cavernous sinus inflammation, if this intracranial infection is not effectively controlled, it will be fatal.

Risk 2: Pneumonia Risk

A study published in the "European Respiratory Journal" found that human hands and noses can be the transmission route of pneumococcus. When we rub our noses with our hands, especially when we pick our nostrils with our hands, it is likely to increase the risk of pneumonia.

Risk 3: Damage to Nose Hair

The existence of nose hair is to help us block dust, germs and other foreign objects in the air, and frequent nostril picking will undoubtedly damage the nose hair and cause the nose hair to fall off.

Risk 4: Traumatic epistaxis

The small nasal cavity may have very rich capillaries, especially in the dry season, if the nostrils are frequently picked, it is very easy to damage the capillaries and cause traumatic nosebleeds.

3. Will the nostrils get bigger and bigger?

The two things you probably want to know most about your nostrils are how exactly do they work? The second is whether frequent nostril picking will make the nostrils bigger?

First of all, do you know that the working status of the two nostrils is actually "on duty"?

Under normal circumstances, one nostril is responsible for breathing, while the other nostril that breathes less is temporarily rested . After a while, the two nostrils begin to exchange positions. This process is actually called "nasal circulation".

Secondly, whether picking the nostrils will cause the nostrils to become bigger. The author Roland Flett listed the evolution history of the nostrils in detail in "The History of Nose Picking". It seems that the nostrils have really become bigger.

There is elastic cartilage in the nasal cavity. Although the cartilage will recover after picking the nostrils, if the nostrils are enlarged by hand for a long time, the elasticity of the cartilage may be reduced, and the nostrils may really become larger in the long run.

4. How to clean your nose?

Nose hairs filter larger foreign bodies while nasal mucous membrane absorbs small foreign bodies, so it is necessary to clean the nasal cavity, so how to clean the nose properly?

Director Wu Yanqiao from the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery of Tsinghua Changgung Hospital in Beijing gave a suggestion: When washing the face on weekdays, you can wash the vestibule of the nasal cavity with clean water, but do not inhale it, which will destroy the pH value and osmotic pressure.

Of course, if possible, you can use a nasal aspirator , which needs to be matched with an equal proportion of normal saline to rinse the nasal cavity.

In fact, there is no need to clean the normal secretions in the nasal cavity every day , because the nose hair has its own self-cleaning ability. If there are hard foreign objects in the nasal cavity, you can dip a cleaning cotton swab into pure water or saline, and then gently roll it to remove the foreign objects. That's it.

You may be picking your nose to remove foreign objects in the nasal cavity, or it may be just a subconscious behavior, but it is not a good habit to pick your nose with your hands. It is best to use cotton swabs or nasal aspirators to clean nasal foreign objects.

References:

[1] "People who pick their noses for a long time, what happened afterwards?" ". Natural History. 2022-05-29

[2] "Why Can't You Pick Your Nose?" Does regular digging make your nostrils bigger? Only after reading can the truth be revealed.” Tencent Medical Code. 2020-10-27

[3] "Girls born after 2000 picked their noses and nearly died of intracranial infection. Can they still pick their nostrils?" ". The whole people is true-Tencent News. 2022-05-28

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