Tag Archives: Karan Raj

If You’ve Ever Wondered Why You Fart More On Planes, This Is For You

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We don’t talk enough about the sensory experiences on flights. The popping ears, the flip of the stomach as take-off happens, the vast array of confined noises all happening at once… it’s a lot.

However, the one sensation that we really don’t talk enough about is just how much more gassy we are when we’re thousands of feet in the air. It’s fine, you don’t have to say it out loud, we’re saying it for you.

There’s something so cruel about experiencing excessive gas when you quite literally can’t escape the situation but it really is normal and if you experience this, you’re not alone.

In fact, according to Dr Karan Rajan, it’s pretty much unavoidable.

Why you need to fart more on planes

In a reel posted on Instagram, the doctor explained that because the cabin pressure decreases which leads to the air inside of your intestines increasing by up to 30%.

Then, since your colon has limited space and can only expand so much, a natural consequence is to release the fumes. While you can try to hold farts in, not only is that going to leave you feeling uncomfortable, it’s also almost impossible on a flight.

This is because the pressure of the gas travelling down will take over the integrity of your anal sphincter, and some stinky fumes will make their way out. Sorry.

If you’ve ever wondered why the food on planes is very carb-heavy, this is why. Low fibre foods are less likely to leave you quite so gassy.

However, Dr Rajan assures, the filters in flight air conditioners are actually charcoal and they can absorb a lot of the smell. If you do worry about farting too much or just have a sensitive stomach, he recommends avoiding high FODMAP foods such as onions, garlic, seeds, and some kinds of breads as well as eating slowly to aid digestion.

Plus, you can take comfort in knowing this can happen to everyone so you won’t be the only gassy passenger.

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The 3 Major Reasons Why Women Get Much Worse Healthcare Than Men

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Following a TikTok user pointing out that her partner received more aftercare following his vasectomy than she did after giving birth, Dr Karan Raj stepped in to explain why women are still getting the short straw when it comes to healthcare, and specifically pain relief.

Dr Raj said that this is down to a combination of systemic unconscious bias, a lack of research, as well as a failure to acknowledge biological differences in how women process pain.

All of that has led to pain being dismissed, misdiagnosed or undertreated which can have lethal consequences.

Love. That. For. Us.

Why women’s healthcare still falls behind

The surgeon added that despite advances in healthcare, women are diagnosed ‘significantly’ later across over 700 diseases and in some cases, such as endometriosis, waiting up to 10 years for diagnosis.

Frustratingly, he also revealed that sometimes, women’s pain is wrongly attributed to psycological causes and the word ‘hysteria’ was only removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM classification.

Additionally, women’s health and specifically pain-focused research is less likely to be studied in clinical trials which makes effective treatment difficult to find.

He admitted that to this day, we don’t know how women metabolise and react to various pain medications or how women experience or manifest pain.

Finally, he said that because there are so many knowledge and gender gaps when it comes to women’s pain, “It’s imperative that we treat the pain the patient has, not the pain we think the patient should have.”

How to advocate for yourself at the doctors

According to the period health experts at Clue, these are the best ways to advocate for yourself at a doctor’s appointment:

  • Be prepared and assertive. Write a list of symptoms to discuss with your doctor and on the day, , give the doctor the facts about your symptoms and don’t downplay your symptoms
  • Ask questions. For example, if you don’t feel that your doctor has considered alternatives, simply say, “is there anything else it could be?”
  • Try to not be pressured into treatment that you don’t want to do. It’s normal to need a second opinion and listening to your own thoughts and feelings matters, too
  • Take notes at your appointment to ensure that you remember everything that’s said and can refer back to them in future appointments
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