Short Stuff: Adam's Apples and Throat Lumps

This week's short stuff is all about throat lumps and Adam's apples.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we've got two
Adams apples between us, and that makes this short stuff,
that's right. Uh. This was another one where I just,
all of a sudden, I saw a guy with a
very prominent Adams apple, and I don't I don't have

(00:25):
a very prominent Adams apple, do you know. I just
don't think I've got a pretty wand Adam's apple. Yeah,
so we're both just a couple of low voice squeaker
squeaker fellas. I've got like Adams coume quat. Now that
I really think about it, I might have like a grape.
I can barely feel that thing. But we're talking about

(00:46):
Adams apples here. Uh that if you if you don't know,
I don't want to be the podcaster that assumes everyone
knows what that is. Uh. It can it can be
that prominent bump in the sort of center throat of
usually as we'll see a man. Uh, and let's talk

(01:07):
about it. What is that? Well, according to the Bible
and Bible types, Adam, the original Adam was taking a
bite of that forbidden apple and some of it got
stuck in his throat, which cursed all remaining men to
come to be born with a symbol of that forbidden
fruit sticking in his his throat. And I love this

(01:28):
article from I think from how Stuff Works said that's folklore,
but in reality, the Adam's apple is a result of
a boy's voice box larynx growing. That's right, uh and
big thanks to how Stuff Works with this in Jennifer Sellers,
the author and the Healthy dot Com And I love
this one. Harley Street e n T nice. If you

(01:50):
want to learn about the throat, go to an ear
nose and throat place. Sure, for sure, that's their motto. Yep,
it's a little self serving, but it is their that's right.
And here's the deal. It is um. It is cartilage,
and it starts out usually during puberty, and it is
your your larynx. It is your voice box getting bigger

(02:10):
and bigger, and your voice will get deeper. And so
I was like, hey, does that mean if you have
really prominent adams apple, you're more likely to have a deeper,
more booming voice. And that's that's true. Oh, that makes
total sense. Yeah. The reason it's associated with men typically
is it's activated. Um that growth of it is activated

(02:30):
by testosterone, an increase in testosterone during puberty. But that's
not to say that girls larynx and larynx is yeah,
don't grow as well. They just don't typically grow as
prominent as boys do. And partially as a result of that,
women have higher voices, usually because their larynx is smaller,

(02:51):
uh than a man's larynx. Right, so you're less likely
to grow up looking like I feel like Adrian Brody
has a prominent adoms apple. Totally. Yes, that's a great
example of that. I'll just watch that movie you told
me to watch, which one, the sort of murder mystery
in the theater? See how they run? Yeah, very very enjoyable.

(03:13):
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I started watching a horror series
that he's in from the set in the eighteen sixties
or whatever. UM called Chapel Weight, and apparently it's like
a prequel the Salem's Lot. Maybe I'm not sure. I
haven't figured that out, but interesting, It's okay, I'm I'm on.
I just finished episode one and I'm deciding whether or

(03:34):
not to start to You've become quite the horror aficionado. Here,
it's true in your middle age officiate time. All right,
So that's the difference of the size of the Adams apple. Again,
that's not to say that, uh, a woman could have
an atom's apple that you see and notice and can
be prominent. Uh. There could be several reasons for this.

(03:56):
It could be a genetic thing, it could be because
of a horror monal imbalance that happened during puberty. It
could just be an anomaly. Um. But that's like it
can be, Um, it can be problematic. I think that
sometimes that's such a trait that you might associate with, uh,
with with men that I think if a woman has

(04:18):
one that's a little more prominent, that they might be
embarrassed by that. Uh. You can get surgery for that
kind of thing. It's called the feminizing condo lorange of
plastic tracheal shave. Tracheal shave. Yeah, I'd rather be called
the feminizing condo Lorarangeoplastic tracheal shave sounds very painful, but

(04:39):
it's apparently not. It's apparently a pretty safe procedure. And
women with Adam's apples, who by the way, Meg Ryan,
Sandra Bullock, Miley Cyrus all known to happen. Ohm, I
at least got that that deep voice. Yes, she does
for sure. Um uh. But if a woman is self
conscious about that, she might have that procedure or for

(05:01):
trans women, that's often a part of it's often a
procedure that they undergo. But although the growth of the
larynx leads to higher lower voice, depending on how big
it is, um, if you do a tracheal shave, that
doesn't affect the voice. Um. Yeah, you have to undergo
voice feminizing surgery where they actually go in and alter

(05:23):
the length of the vocal cords. Wow. Very interesting. I'm
glad you looked that up. All right, Well, let's take
a break here, bruminate on that, and we will come
back and talk about sort of adjacent idea, which is
when you get the sadds and you get a lump
in your throat. Chuck. I am so psyched about this.

(06:03):
This was the thing that I didn't know I wanted
to know about. And it's great because it's fully explicable.
I love those. Yeah, the idea that you are and
it's usually a situation where I feel like it's usually
situation where you may not be able to just burst
out in tears. Maybe you're trying to hold some emotion

(06:25):
back and you go to swallow, it feels like you've
got a chunk of Havardy cheese in your throat and
it's very uncomfortable feeling. I think we've all had it,
and that's you know that. You call that a lump
in your throat. Yeah, it's also known as the globus
sensation or globbus because it's a great band name. Yeah,

(06:47):
I think so. Um it's it all centers around the glottis,
which is the opening between your vocal cords that you
can breathe through. And um, well let's explain this. Okay,
when you feel lump in your throat and you're stre
u stout, the point to your body is that you're
stressed out, and so the automic autonomic nervous system kicks

(07:08):
in fight or flight. Remember old old friends, fight or
flight We've talked about all the time. Well, to your
autonomic nervous system if you're if you're in a stressful situation,
it makes no differentiation between whether a bear is coming
at you or the entire stadium at the World Series
is booing you, does not matter. It treats it the

(07:29):
same way. And what it does is it prepares you
to fight or flight in one way that you do
that is by breathing in better So it opens your
glattis big time and lets the oxygen into that you
can start getting that blood pumping and those muscles moving.
All right, So that's a good first part of the response. Um,
so what's happening, literally is your your glottis opens wide

(07:53):
open because your body basically is saying you need to
run in the other direction and get the heck out
of here. In in in order to do that, and most efficiently,
you need to breathe in more oxygen. So we're going
on engines. Uh, we're going balls out, literally, is what
we're doing. And we're gonna open that glottis as wide
as possible. But if you're laying on the couch watching

(08:16):
uh uh Brian's song, what's another sad movie? That's a
boat old reference? Um, ordinary people? Okay, sure, I watched
that on a plane recently. Very dull. Really yeah, I
never saw it. It's just it's early eighties to me. No,
that's really good. Or terms of endearment, let's say, or
steel magnolias, when which Shelby does old yeller, I'm sorry

(08:39):
to spoil steel magnolias. Oh yeah, geez that man. So,
if you're laying on your couch and your body is
saying get up and run down the street away from
whatever this is stressing you out, and you're lying there
trying to swallow, you're just having a hard time swallowing
because in order to swallow, your glottis is supposed to close, right,

(09:00):
but your glattis is wide open because of your autonomic
nervous system, and they're in is that lump in the throat.
And the reason why you feel like swallowing, and the
reason you get a lump in your throat is because
you're actively trying to fight back tears. And one way
to fight back tears is to hold your breath, which
you need to close your glatties for, or you swallow
what you need to close your glads for. And so

(09:20):
those two opposing forces, trying to close your glasses and
keep your gladss open is what gives you that lump
in the throat sensation. Boy, the hunk of I've already
was tastier, but this is this is pretty tasty to totally.
You got anything else? I've got nothing else. This is uh,
this is a good perfect shorty. I think I agree.

(09:42):
Perfection has been achieved, which means short stuff is out.
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