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Swallowing Deadly Chewing Gum / Bubble Gum

MrRING

Android Futureman
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I couldn't find this on Snopes, but I've always heard that swallowing bubble (or chewing) gum is dangerous. Supposedly, it takes as much as ten years to work it's way through the digestive system, and if you swollow too much, it will block your intestines leading to death.

Truth or UL?
 
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I've heard that, too. But I figure if a kid can pass a penny, then gum shouldn't be a problem. Besides, I have never heard of anybody actually dying from swallowing the stuff. My vote is for UL. Of course, I am no doctor or trained professional, so who knows?
 
When I was a kid we believed that swallowing gum would cause appendicitis.
 
Well chewing/bubble gum is (I should imagine) almost completely indigestible so I suppose, in extreme cases, it could cause problems if swallowed in large amounts.
Can't see how the odd piece could be really dangerous though. (Mind you, I think chewing gum is a vile habit so can't really talk from experience)
 
The other story was that it would wrap around your heart and crush it.

(I never believed this having been a smartarse from a very young age. Used to swallow my gum just to disprove it.)
 
Re: Swollowing Deadly Bubble Gum

Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
if you swollow too much, it will block your intestines leading to death.

If you swallow too much of anything you will by definition have a problem. ;)

I suspect the myth orginates with adults who didn't like chewing gum and wanted to put kids off it.
 
Snopes does have something on it.

http://www.snopes.com/spoons/oldwives/chewgum.htm

QUOTE:It's
hard to find anyone who hasn't heard this specious claim about swallowed gum, usually when they were children. No, there's nothing to support this rumor; as sticky as chewing gum might appear to be outside the body, once it's sent down the alimentary canal it's no more remarkable in that respect than most anything else we swallow.

This oft-repeated claim may stem from genuine confusion over a term commonly applied to chewing gum: indigestible. Although gum resists the body's efforts to break it down (hence the 'indigestible' designation), it does not linger in the stomach. Gum is eliminated as human waste in the same way — and at the same rate — as any other swallowed matter. Granted, it comes out the far end relatively unchanged by the trip, but it does come out on schedule.
 
So does anybody even know if it does take ten years to digest swollowed gum?

It sounds like this could be a pretty solid UL if the threat is made up, with plenty of variations (never heard the ehart one before).
 
I doubt that you could have something swishing around in your digestive tract for ten years without A Significant Problem developing. No, it goes through at roughly the same rate as anything else.
 
They say it's bogus on THE STRAIGHT DOPE

I assume they are generally reputible?

Amd another question - why haven't I seen this swallowing gum danger before as a UL? Has it never been documented as a UL? is it not widespread enough to be a UL?
 
I was always told not to swallow it as it would 'wrap round my innards' .
 
Does anyone remember a news story from years ago where a girl blew a bubble which popped leaving bubble gum covering her nose, she panicked so much she couldn't get it off and asphixiated.
 
That wouldn't be the Darwin Awards, would it? ;)

Look, if you're REALLY curious, just chew up some gum and swallow it. To be perfectly, horrifically blunt, you'll smell it again about 18 hrs later (or however long it takes).

Leaferne, plainspoken broad :D
 
Leaferne said:
Look, if you're REALLY curious, just chew up some gum and swallow it. To be perfectly, horrifically blunt, you'll smell it again about 18 hrs later (or however long it takes).

Rinse and recycle?

Timble, being revolting. :D
 
Everyone knows this one. I think it is just what you're told to stop you wanting to chew gum.
I was told by someone when I was kid that your eyes were connected by a thin peice of thread and when you went cross-eyed it could cause the thread to snap and you'd be blind.
That scared me for years, I'm still cautious not to muck around with the crossed-eyedness.
 
McAvennie said:
Everyone knows this one. I think it is just what you're told to stop you wanting to chew gum.
I was told by someone when I was kid that your eyes were connected by a thin peice of thread and when you went cross-eyed it could cause the thread to snap and you'd be blind.
That scared me for years, I'm still cautious not to muck around with the crossed-eyedness.

I was told if I pulled a silly face that it would stay like that if the wind changed. Also that if you look at a young baby from behind it would go cross eyed trying to look back at you and would develop a squint.
 
i speak as living proof that swallowing bubble gum does not kill you.

my family never bought gum, and the first time i had it was at a friend's house. she didn't tell me not to swallow it, but delighted in telling me how terrible it was for you after i already had.

i suppose i should have known to be cautious, as i had a similar experience several years earlier with the core of an apple.
 
If you chew and swallow enough of it I imagine it could cause intestinal blockage. That could be a serious problem, which could theoretically cause death in extreme untreated cases.

But unless you're chewing and swallowing huge amounts of gum over a short period of time I doubt it would be an issue.

This can happen with normal foodstuffs (indigestible materials don't usually come in as large gobs), so I imagine great big gobs of indigistible material would be more of a problem.
 
I was always told that swallowing gum (any kind of gum) would stick my insides together. I think Mom was afraid we'd choke on it.

Mom used to give us Chiclets to stop us squirming in church. During one service, I grew steadily hungrier and hungrier and for whatever reason the minister wouldn't shut up. Now, I didn't know back then that I was hypoglycemic, but I knew that hunger was a thing nobody but me took seriously enough. I don't think most people get hungry the way I get hungry. I had to eat something or apalling things would happen. (Ask anyone who knows me. "I'm hungry" is a threat .) But all I had was Chiclets, which would stick my insides together.

I reasoned that, since I'd already chewed the piece in my mouth till it wasn't sticky, it would be okay if I bit it into small enough pieces. So I sat there basically nibbling on something that was already in my mouth, diligently carving off teeny tiny pieces with my incisors and swallowing them. If nothing else, it gave me something to think about besides the fact that I was hungry.
 
I used to love swallowing gum as a child...I don't think I knew I wasn't supposed to ^^;; Then my mother told me I shouldn't, because it'd clog up all my insides and I'd die. I spent several weeks panicking that all the gum I'd eaten already would kill me :p
 
Damn! So you mean no-one's ever farted and blown a bubble?
 
I was told it would never come out again if I swallowed gum :(

On a similar note my older brother told me if I ate seeds from an apple, grape whatever, the result would be a bush growing out my ass :)

This worried me much more than the gum thing :)
 
Jack Ruby said:
I was told it would never come out again if I swallowed gum :(

On a similar note my older brother told me if I ate seeds from an apple, grape whatever, the result would be a bush growing out my ass :)

This worried me much more than the gum thing :)

Other kids would say the same about tangerine and orange seeds. But in their version of things, the tree would grow up our throats. No matter how much I tried to explain the process of digestion, they would insist I was wrong.
 
I always heard that gum took seven years to digest. I never swallowed any, not out of fear, but simply because I'd rather just spit my old flavorless gum out. ;)
 
I found this on another forum:


Confession of Gum Swallower:
This is the confession of a gum-swallower. I admit it. For as long as I can remember, I have always swallowed my bubble gum instead of throwing it out. This used to be a major subject of contention with my mother when I was a child, as she was convinced that the practice would lead to my untimely demise. The gum mass was indigestible according to her, you see, and as such could not pass properly through the gastrointestinal tract. I was at great risk of numerous medical conditions because of this questionable assertion, including "twisted intestines," "stomach pileup," and choking to death on my own vomit after the bubble gum body inevitably attempts to escape through my esophagus, closing the pipes indefinitely on the way out.

Naturally, I never believed a single word the old lady said. I've been a gum-swallower my entire life, right up until my mid-20s. It was only then that I experienced a veritable epiphany of how wise my mother may actually have been.

Several weeks ago, I purchased a fairly large quantity of Dubble Bubble for my daughter's gum ball machine. The amount of gum I acquired was directly proportional to my own developed taste for the product, since it resembled crack cocaine in addictiveness. After originally buying the pre-filled gum ball machine, I'd proceeded to consume almost the entire contents in just a few short days, and thought I'd better stock up on the stuff if I was to maintain a positive relationship with my young child.

Unfortunately, much like Al Pacino in "Scarface," when confronted with such a sizeable amount of pseudo-cocaine, I attacked it with relish. I practically lived off bubble gum for several days. I couldn't get enough. I ate six, seven, sometimes eight small globes at a time in an attempt to find the perfect mix of synthetic flavors. I studied the texture of chewed gum by placing the most perfect tooth and fingerprint impressions ever taken outside of a crime lab. I watched with fascination as I created drab shades of gray from the most myriad selection of brightly colored items. I was almost a scientist of bubble gum by the end of those few days, you see. And each experiment became yet another lump lying heavy on my stomach.

Alas, I was destined for trouble. After consuming such a vast quantity of bubble gum, certain bodily processes started to become strange. My bowel movements rotated from frequent to nearly constipated for several days. For the life of me, I couldn't predict at what point the need to crap would attack. When I did plop down to plop, both the defecation process and the subsequent wiping would seem almost...

Sticky.

This went on for another day or two. It was only then that an event occurred that would change my philosophy on gum swallowing forever. Perhaps the bolus of evil had lodged itself in my colon somewhere just as my mother claimed it would, or perhaps the passing of such hideousness naturally requires an extended length of time; I fear I will never know the answer. All I know is that during an otherwise perfectly normal evening of watching television and reading a book, the cramps began.

I'm reasonably confident that I know what childbirth feels like now. It felt as though my colon was uncoiling and recoiling itself within my abdomen. I rushed to the bathroom and sat down, expecting a torrent of acidic pain. Ah, if only I'd been so lucky! When the defecation came, it felt as though it came out sideways. My sphincter cried out in agony, the toilet sang in joy at the miracle it was about to receive. When I regained consciousness and brought myself to the point of wiping, I discovered the true horror of the evening.

Before continuing, I consider it necessary to make one qualification. I possess a rather... how you say, furry posterior. I freely admit this. I am a man of gum swallowing and a hairy ass. A hairy ass that was now virtually plastered with partially digested bubble gum.

If you've ever tried to get gum out of the hair on your head, you'll understand the conundrum that I was in. Once bubble gum has attached itself to the hair follicle, the two are inseparable. Inseparable like night and day. Inseparable like my ass CHEEKS now were, welded together with a mass of rapidly hardening cement.

After realizing what had happened, I understandably wished to keep the gravity of the situation private. One does not glue his ass cheeks together with fecal bubble gum and spread the proverbial word, you see. And so, I sat and thought. Thought HARD. What do you do? How am I going to get myself out of this one?

Okay, let's think about this. We have an uneven mass of bubble gum in the ass hair. It needs to come out, obviously. But how do you get gum out of hair? I recall someone telling me that peanut butter is the only recourse. No, f**k that, I'm not making a goddamn sandwich in my ass. The thought of slathering brown sludge in with other brown sludge was not appealing.

Well, option number one: rip it out. old school, yo!!. So, using a small strip of toilet paper as a -=-=-=-=-shield, I grabbed a lump of the offending plaster and yanked.

WELL HOLY BUGGERY DUCKNUTS, BATMAN! That made my eyes water and my skull expand. Option number one is officially discarded, along with a healthy strip of my taint. Where do we go from here?

Well, maybe option number one isn't *totally* flawed. I'll take a shower! That'll loosen it up, right?

WRONG.

The bubble gum has become ONE with my ass hair now. They are no longer separate entities by any stretch of the imagination. They are joined at the cellular level. Their electrons circle each other in a spinning mass of beauty and PAIN.

Now what? The taint is an area of the body far too sensitive to have hair ripped from it. You might as well expect me to rip off my arm to scratch an itch on my finger.

It was around then that I came to the only logical conclusion. We have to
*shave* it out, old bean. I'm sorry, dear sweet anus, but it's the only way. But what shall I shave it with, dear Liza, dear Liza?

I can't use the hand razor I shave my face with, certainly; would I be able to shear my whiskers every morning while knowing where it had been? That microglobs of poo-gum were being ground into my cheeks and neck?

No, certainly not! I do, however, have a small beard trimmer that might do the job. It was only a few dollars at Wal-Mart, after all; I can burn it when I'm done. Alrighty then, pants off, left leg up on the sink, offending mass of bubble gum presented comfortably, mirror positioned on the floor to help me aim. Okay, razor on, let's do this thing!

DEAR SWEET ZOMBIE IT'S STUCK!

Well isn't this wonderful, the undeniable reflex to jump and run from pain has kicked in! I'm now hopping around the bathroom with this two inch electric razor jammed firmly into my ass, dangling around like some sort of freakish technological tail.

The forces of physics have turned on me now. Gravity pulls the razor down as the momentum of my pain dance spins and twists it ever further into the tenderness of my crack. Screams begin to emerge through my gritted teeth. I try desperately to avoid waking my child and/or alerting my delightfully unsuspicious wife. After all, what would I tell them?

"Are you okay, dear?"

"Daddy, what's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing much. I tried to shave the bubblegum out of my ass, and now I'm waving the razor around like a second penis. Don't mind me, go back to sleep!"

Okay, I've calmed myself down. I cradle the offending piece of plastic and agony in an attempt to reduce the pressure on my tormented rectum. Well now you're in a real pickle, eh? You thought it couldn't get any worse, didn't you?

It was around this point that I started to get my head on straight. One must keep in mind how difficult it is to employ high-level cognitive abilities when one is experiencing pain in his most sensitive of areas. Thankfully, my wits had returned.

The razor wasn't going to come out. I was faced with several options: A) Shave it out. Cut it out.

Solution A wasn't viable since I'd already destroyed my only non-vital razor. The only problem with B was that there were no scissors in the bathroom; in fact, the only scissors I could think of were down the hall, within the cutlery drawer of the kitchen. My wife was using the computer in the living room, and could very likely see the bathroom door...

Yet the pros greatly outweighed the cons.

So, hopping like a crippled dog, I held the electric beard trimmer firmly against my battered ass hair and fumbled my way down the hall, praying to any possible deities that my wife wouldn't take this occasion to come get a snack or a glass of water. There was no answer for the situation I was in. The fates decided to smile upon me, I suppose. It seems perfectly reasonable that they would, of course, since they'd taken it upon themselves to so thoroughly destroy my sanity up until that point. I managed to duck-walk my way back to the bathroom, and with a carefulness that only a surgeon could appreciate, delicately extracted the clipper from myself.

Using the scissors, it didn't take all that long to snip away the majority of my post-gum. I shaved two long swaths into my ass, in fact, which resulted in the most agonizing discomfort over the next few days. Imagine rubbing two sheets of coarse sandpaper together. Then imagine a thin coat of unabsorbed poop-sweat turning the whole thing into a circus of embarrassment and skid marks. If there's a deep and philosophical message to be found in what I've written, it's lost on me. All I know is that under no circumstances should you ever... EVER... swallow your bubble gum.
 
A few days ago, I swallowed two packs of chewing gum, about 20 sticks, after chewing,obviously, anyway I'm still standing (well, sitting at the moment) and still have regular, er, movements, shall we say.
 
My Mum used to say it would stretch over the entrance to the windpipe and suffocate me. That was enough for me, yessir :shock:
 
I always heard that gum took seven years to digest.

A friend of mine swears the same about bacon. My initial reaction was to mock, but she then went into a very involved story about a flatmate who underwent colonic irrigation. The usual unpleasantness came out but then at the very end there was, you guessed it, some small pieces of bacon. This would be unremarkable except the flatmate had been vegetarian for several years... :shock:
 
"The bubble gum has become ONE with my ass hair now. They are no longer separate entities by any stretch of the imagination. They are joined at the cellular level. Their electrons circle each other in a spinning mass of beauty and PAIN. "

That is the funniest thing I have read all year!

As for gum swallowing, I always swallowed when I was younger, and I remember my know it all bully telling me it would strangle my heart. Didn't believe her for a second, because, yaknow...there's some biological stuff separating your heart from what you swallow. Silly me and my silly logic.
Now I just sort of think it is gross to swallow, but I don't think it ever hurt me. Then again, I have always had some stomach issues.
 
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