A Dad Ate 25 Packs Silica Gel For Breakfast. This Is What Happened To His Stomach.

A Dad Ate 25 Packs Silica Gel For Breakfast.  This Is What Happened To His Stomach. KC is a 33 year old man, presenting to the  emergency room with nausea, and vomiting. He tells the admitting nurse that he  was prepared. It was only a matter of   time before he could escape the simulation  and join everyone else, in the real world. You see, KC was a single dad who  worked hard to provide for his kids.   Over the last 10 years, he had survived  several rounds of layoffs at his office job.   But even in surviving every single company  change, KC could never get a promotion. He’d try to take special projects. He’d  try to make friends with the leadership.   But nothing he ever did, amounted to  any actual movement in his career.   All his friends from school were getting  bigger titles. They were getting paid,   but he was stuck at the bottom, doing the  same job as he had had, for the last 10 years. Disillusioned, KC started to despise  both people at his company and corporate   anything. Any time he saw some kind of  messaging on an ad or a warning on a label,   all he could think of is how  much he hated big companies. One day, KC hadn’t slept well. He woke up, and  wasn’t sure where he was. On the table was a   big bag of silica gel dessicant that he had left  overnight for his 3D printing hobby. And as he saw   the warning on the label, Silica Gel, Do Not Eat,  his immediate contempt for corporate took hold.   As he was brushing his teeth, he got angrier and  angrier that those packets were speaking to him. Those silica gel industry big  shots can’t tell me what to do,   he thought, as he put 25 packs of silica gel in a  bowl of milk, and started eating them like cereal. Immediately after putting some  silica gel packs in his mouth,   KC could feel the crunch on his teeth. The  beads immediately stuck on to his tongue   as his mouth felt like a singularity as the beads  started sucking every little bit of moisture out.   While chewing, he thought the packets tasted  bitter, and he could feel the sharp edges   of chewed beads cut down the side of  his throat as he swallowed them down. KC felt the beads settle in his stomach,  as he reluctantly opened his work laptop,   to clock in for his job. But as the minutes  passed, he started feeling uncomfortable. He   felt a sour taste pierce in to his cheeks from  under his tongue as he started vomiting in a way   like never before. At the toilet now, he  could taste the silica gel and milk he ate   for breakfast come up. In the forceful upwards  movement, those beads lodged in to his nose.   He could feel some beads squeeze in from under  his eyes like they were pushing out of his skull.   On the floor, in the bathroom. In a world of  hurt, KC knew it wasn’t over as he calls for 911,   and he’s brought to the  emergency room, where we are now. At examination, doctors find that KC is  distressed. Other than the vomiting and nausea,   everything else seemed to be normal. He’s  breathing. He has a heart rate. He’s alert   and responsive. He kept telling staff that he  was ready to escape the simulation and join   everyone else in the real world, which gives the  doctors some clues as to what could be happening. This possible mental status change could  mean something, but KC is otherwise coherent.   Except for the fact that he kept  telling the nurse that those silica gel   industry hotshots can’t tell him what to do. When the doctors asked him what he meant by that,   he told them: he ate 25 packs of silica gel for  breakfast. He poured it in a bowl of milk like   it was cereal and ate it. And this tells  doctors everything that they need to know. Silica gel is a fancy name for silicon dioxide.  Di meaning 2 and oxide referring to oxygen.   Silicon being one of the most abundant elements on  earth, not to be confused with silicone implants.   Silicon and silicon dioxide are naturally  occurring and are in things like sand,   while silicone is not naturally occurring. And  silicon and oxygen are some of the most abundant   elements available on the planet. But why is  silica gel a dessicant? What even is a dessicant? Well, you see, these packets are usually  found in packages that you want to be dry.   Beef jerky is an example. Camera equipment  is another. This is because moisture in the   air can make food like jerky taste stale, and  it can cause mold to grow on camera lenses.   Dessicant means that silica gel removes moisture,  water, from ambient air, but how does it do that? This brings us to an idea of “like  dissolves like.” Oils mix together.   Water based things mix together. But water  and oil, those things don’t mix together. In chemistry, oxygen and hydrogens play with each  other. They attract each other, even when bound   to other chemicals. So if water is made only of  oxygen and hydrogen, water is dihydrogen monoxide,   then this could explain why water based chemicals  dissolve each other. But oils are made of carbon   and hydrogen. Oils don’t really have much  oxygen. And without that oxygen to play,   oils separate themselves out from the water,  and they don’t interact and they don’t dissolve. So if silicon dioxide has a lot of  oxygen, then it does interact with water. In the little pores at the surface of the  beads, small water molecules stick on to   the surface. Little pores give extra surface and  more space for even more water to stick per bead.   Because the area’s so large, silica gel takes on  large amounts of water relative to its weight,   drying out its surroundings, because silicon  dioxide holds on to water stronger than air,   explaining how it’s a dessicant. But  why does the packet say do not eat? The interesting thing about a label like this  is that in English, many people read that as   something in here is poisonous if you eat it.  Typically if something’s a choking hazard,   the label would say choking hazard. But  it doesnt say that here. And even worse,   sometimes people will do things,  especially when they’re told   not to do it, just like in KC’s case.  But what exactly is poisonous here? This brings us back to silicon dioxide.  In chemistry, when things are unstable,   they’re reactive. The reason they react  with something is to become more stable.   Poisons do their damage in the body, by doing  that reacting. This could happen by blocking   a naturally occurring process required to live,  like how carbon monoxide stops oxygen from being   transported in the red blood cells. Or poisons  can react by permanently destroying something   in the body, like accidentally drinking  a Lava lamp that makes crystals with   calcium from your body, that stick in  to your kidneys and shred them apart. The thing with silica gel, is that it’s already  stable. It doesnt need to react with anything.   Actually, it’s so stable that it won’t react even  if your body tried. It pulls water, but that’s   reversible— you can reuse packets if you heat them  in the oven. Meaning, by itself, silica gel is not   poisonous in the body. The reason you’re not  supposed to eat them is because, it could be a   choking hazard. It could block something in your  stomach if you eat enough of it. But generally,   you don’t eat it because…. Why? It doesn’t do  much to your body except maybe adsorb some of the   water in your stomach. And if you think you’re  eating something weird, your mind’s a powerful   construct and you can easily convince yourself  to push it back out, which brings us back to KC. In the emergency room, doctors realize that  nothing terrible is going to happen to KC   because he ate silica gel packs. The silica  beads will suck water out of his stomach,   so doctors can rehydrate him, but no toxic  actions will happen in his body. As soon   as they figured out he didn’t put anything  else that could be a problem in his body,   they referred him for a psychiatric evaluation. Silica gel ingestion cases do happen. It’s  actually not that uncommon, despite that   well known warning label. Thirty-eight thousand  people were reported to have eaten them in 2009   in America. And interestingly enough, 34,000 of  those people were under the age of 6, so parents,   keep in mind what your kids are eating, you  don’t want them exiting the simulation on you.   And 38,000 was only the reported cases, probably  much more than that actually happened. In kids,   the beads can be choking hazards.  Some other kinds of silica gel   may have coatings which can be toxic, but  usually not in large enough amounts to do   permanent damage. Silicon dioxide is  actually found as an additive in foods,   so we all do eat some silica in other forms. But  don’t eat this. You don’t know where it’s been. KC found out the hard way, there is  no simulation and no real world other   than the one he was living in after eating 25  packs of silica gel at least this time around,   as he was discharged from the  hospital, and he made a full recovery. Thanks so much for watching. Take  care of yourself. And be well.

Channel: Chubbyemu

Views: 1,306,935

Rating: 4.9095407 out of 5

Keywords: slica gel, desicant

Id: ChgIkbg0x80

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/No_cuts]

Yay!

[u/All_Rainbows_Die]

Dafuq and why?

(presses play)

Also: going to get some breakfast I'm hungry now

[u/Mavrickindigo]

I am confused. Did this really happen or was this just based on that comic?