Scratching eases wheezing and coughing
June 5, 2011 4:09 AM   Subscribe

Why does scratching a small part of my back eaze wheezing?

I'm just getting over a cold and chest infection. During the wheezy stages of the chest infection, my back became itchy, particularly the spot on the back where a woman's bra strap buckle would rest - about a third of the way down from the neck.

It seems if I scratched a certain part of the skin about the size of a penny, it eased the wheezing considerably. Why would this be? I also found that whilst coughing, scratching with something sharp the bottom of my neck at the Adam's apple eased the coughing.

Bodies are so weird!
posted by stenoboy to Health & Fitness (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
In order to get your hand there, you have to open up your shoulders and rib cage, and also getting your hand there is probably pretty distracting. Next time try cow face pose and see if that gives you the same benefits. For a control, try having someone else scratch there and see if that also works.
posted by anaelith at 4:26 AM on June 5, 2011 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Liking the cow face pose! I used to be able to do that when I was younger, but it seems impossible now.

What you said makes sense, but it strange that spot itches when I wheeze. When I was a kid and I had asthma, I would wake up in the night and yell out for someone to scratch my back - again, particularly that bit. Seems it's been with me forever.
posted by stenoboy at 4:45 AM on June 5, 2011


Can't tell you why that spot itches, but I can confirm that when I have asthma attacks, and start wheezing, my back itches, too. Probably right about there, although it's been a while, and I'm not positive.
posted by needlegrrl at 9:40 AM on June 5, 2011


i'm an asthmatic. just talking about that spot on my back makes it itch. weirdly, this has sort of come up before.
posted by nadawi at 11:06 AM on June 5, 2011


This probably doesn't help, but the same thing works for my dog.
posted by roger ackroyd at 2:55 PM on June 5, 2011


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