Episode Transcript
Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.
Dr. Madsen: Well, today's health hack is a trick to try and get a raisin or any other sort of foreign body out of your child's nose. Now, this health hack is a little bit gross, but it works, and it could save you a trip to the ER.
So if your child sticks something up their nose, a raisin or anything else they find around the house, you can't see it to pull it out and you're thinking to yourself, "There's no way I'm going to get this out." One trick is to have your child lie down on a couch or on a bed. You place your mouth on your child's mouth. You blow into their mouth forcefully, quickly, only maybe a second or two of forceful air into their mouth. That air then gets forced up through the nose and that is going to ideally force this raisin or whatever else is in there out of their nose.
Now, it's a little bit gross because you've got to put your mouth on your child's mouth, you have to blow in there, and most likely that raisin or whatever else is in there is going to get blown out onto your face with some mucus. But the good news is you avoid the trip to the ER. If you were to come to the ER with the same problem, I would probably ask you in the ER, "Are you willing to try this here? Because it can avoid a whole a lot of trauma to your child, a whole lot of probing around in their nose." So, if this happens at home, give it a try. There's good evidence that this works well. It can save you a trip to the ER.
Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com. Produced by University of Utah Health.