Vuvuzelas a 'pain in the neck'
2010-11-01 15:37
Cape Town - Vuvuzelas can not only make you deaf, but give you a genuine pain in the neck, doctors say.
Writing in the latest issue of the SA Medical Journal, two German doctors have described what they say is the first case of a "vuvuzela-induced thyroid cyst".
They said a 42-year-old man came to them complaining of painful swelling of the neck and difficulty in swallowing.
An ultrasound scan confirmed a thyroid cyst, and the man's symptoms were relieved when the contents were drained with a needle.
"On being asked whether he had raised heavy weights or pressed strongly, he responded that he had blown a vuvuzela during a recent World Cup soccer game," they said.
'Entertaining characteristics'
The doctors, Alexander Mann and Kerstin Jungheim of the Endokrinologikum medical centre in Frankfurt, said thyroid cysts could appear spontaneously, and had been linked to activities which increased the pressure in the chest area.
"For example, playing high notes on the trumpet, which belongs to the group of high-resistance instruments that includes the vuvuzela, may increase intrathoracic pressure up to 200cm H2O".
Mann said on Monday that this represented a ten-fold increase in pressure.
He said the fan, a German, had not incurred the injury in SA. He had been watching the game at a public viewing site in his home country.
"We thought it was worth reporting," Mann said. "We thought it had some entertaining characteristics."
South African researchers warned before the World Cup that the noise of the vuvuzela could lead to permanent hearing damage.
- SAPA