Swallowing spicy food might make us cough sometimes, but we wouldn’t think our bones would break from doing so.
Unfortunately, this happened to a woman in Shanghai who broke her ribs after a spice-induced coughing fit.
As it turns out, she has a fragile upper body with insufficient muscle strength to adequately support the bones. As a result, the doctor advised her to put on more weight.
According to a video posted by 山海视频 on Weibo, the woman surnamed Ms Huang said she was having a spicy meal during dinner.
At one point, she started coughing from the spiciness. Suddenly, she heard a loud crack and felt a sharp pain in her chest.
Initially, Ms Huang thought she was having a stroke, as her chest hurt while sitting or breathing. She also couldn’t muster the strength to walk.
She was sent to the hospital, where a thoracic surgeon examined her condition. A CT scan revealed that she had broken four ribs.
However, the doctor did not tell her the reason behind the injury.
Instead, he told her that she had fractured her ribs and instructed her to wrap bandages around her chest and rest for a month.
A week later, the woman returned for a follow-up examination with the thoracic surgeon.
He told Ms Huang that her fractures were likely due to the fact that she had a small frame and a thin upper torso, to the point where her ribs were visible.
To put things into context, Ms Huang revealed that she was 1.71m tall and weighed 57kg.
Afterwards, the doctor informed her that she lacked the muscle strength to support her bone structure. Thus, she was susceptible to fracturing her bones if similar incidents happened again, he explained.
As such, he advised her to gain weight and strengthen her body through exercise.
Huang also promised herself that she would do more physical exercise after she recovers from her injuries.
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Featured image adapted from 山海视频 on Weibo.
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