Recently, redditor u/lugulaga asked, "What is the stupidest reason you went to hospital?"
The answers included all kinds of stories, from a person who had hiccups for 24 hours that — of course — stopped as soon as the doctor walked in the room...
To a person who was in extreme pain and thought they were having a heart attack, but it turned out to just be gas...
To a person who ate super spicy hot wings and then touched their "wiener" without having washed their hands. Ouch.
But there was one story — the top comment in the thread — that totally floored me; partially because the story is alarming, and partially because I didn't even know something like this was medically possible. It involves a guy who, as a kid, refused to poop. Here's the full story, in redditor u/4Ever2Thee's words (emphasis mine):
A word of warning: The discussion gets pretttty gross from here on in.
"When I was a kid, I didn’t like pooping because I never felt like I was clean enough after wiping my butt. Not sure why really, I [didn't have] OCD or anything, but I didn’t like it; so I decided to stop pooping. Whenever I had to poop, I’d just hold it or go out and play, and eventually, the urge would go away.
Well, I woke up in the middle of the night, one night, and I literally couldn’t breathe. I ran into my parents' room and woke them up just gasping for air until I passed out. They rushed me to the hospital, and I started being able to breathe again on the ride there. They did some blood work and an X-ray, and saw in the X-ray that my colon was so backed up with poo that the poo was blocking my lungs, especially after lying in my bed sleeping for a few hours, which is why I woke up and couldn’t breathe. My poo-impacted colon was basically pushing against my lungs so I couldn’t inflate them when I tried to breathe in.
They gave me some Ex-Lax, and [I] had to bring in a stool sample for the next couple months, I guess for some sort of testing, but never had a problem after that. I just learned that the poo has to go somewhere so I better get used to pooping. Waking up and not being able to breathe was one of the scariest things I’ve been through."
Horrifying, right? I had no idea that you could just...straight-up decide not to poop. I also had no idea that an impacted bowel could affect your other organs, like your lungs. But sure enough, there are documented cases of people having difficulty breathing as a result of extreme constipation.
Yeah. "Feculent vomiting" — aka vomiting poop — is a thing. Hope you aren't eating lunch while reading this.
Anyway, many commenters replied that intestinal blockages like this can be common among pediatric and geriatric patients — or people with physical disabilities that prevent proper digestion — so the moral of the story here is: If you have a young child or you're a caretaker for an older person, make sure they're pooping regularly.
Special thanks to u/4Ever2Thee for letting us share this story!