Is Holding in a Fart Bad for You?

Holding in a fart won't hurt you, but it can be uncomfortable. Gas in your gut can be painful, and the sensation can be unpleasant. Ultimately, however, holding in a fart won't cause any permanent damage to your gastrointestinal system.

When you hold in a fart, some of the gas is reabsorbed by your body, but most it stays where it is until you release it.

This article will let you know what happens when you hold in a fart, and if holding in a fart can be harmful.

What Happens When You Hold In a Fart

If you're making methane faster than you're passing gas, it will put pressure on the GI tract. If you don't fart, some of the gas gets reabsorbed by your body. Most of it, however, will remain where it is until it's eventually released as flatulence.

Just because you feel bloated doesn't mean your abdomen is distended or that the amount of pressure in your intestines is at dangerous levels. Bloating and distension are real complaints, but they might not have very much to do with flatulence even though they can make it feel as if you need to fart.

At least one study found that the perception of discomfort is higher when you choose not to let a fart go versus when there's a physical reason why you can't.

The way the gut triggers the brain to let us know that we need to fart is part of the reason this happens. The increased pressure causes the feeling of bloating and the urge to release gas. If you're ignoring the feeling, it means you're hyper-aware that you need to pass gas. It's the awareness that makes it so uncomfortable.

How Farts Form

The gastrointestinal (GI) system starts at your lips and ends at your anus. There are several names for the GI system: GI tract, alimentary canal, and gut (which usually refers to the parts that come after the esophagus), are the most common.

You eat and drink, chewing what needs to be chewed with your teeth. You then swallow it into the esophagus where it drains into the stomach and gets broken down with acids. The stomach churns the food and acid mix.

At the bottom of the stomach, the slurry of food and stomach juice is poured into the small intestine. The small intestine is about an inch wide and it has muscles running through it that contract and push its contents along in a wave-like motion.

The final part of the journey happens in the large intestine (aka the rectum). This is where water and the last nutrients from the bacteria-laden contents of the small intestine are absorbed. This is how fecal matter is formed into a consistency that makes it disposable.

Throughout the process of moving matter through the intestines, methane gets in the way. The wave action of the walls of the intestine pushes the gas along first. When gas bubbles get between the walls of the intestine and its other contents, the contents aren't moved along.

Holding in a fart just keeps those bubbles of gas in the gut. Nothing of substance can really move along until the gas is gone. The fact that nothing is moving, even though the signals coming from the gut are telling the brain that movement needs to happen, is the reason why the whole experience feels so uncomfortable.

How to Keep From Farting

What you put into your gut determines what you'll get out. Eating the right foods can help you avoid farting.

The bacteria most likely to give you gas is methanobrevibacter. At least one study found that eating probiotics can help reduce three different bacteria strains from the gastrointestinal tract, including methanobrevibacter. More importantly, the study found that reducing methanobrevibacter really did reduce farts.

When to See a Healthcare Provider

If your symptoms are interfering with your quality of life, or if you just think you might be farting too much and changing your diet hasn't helped, talk to your healthcare provider. This is especially important if you have other symptoms such as:

• Bloating
• Abdominal pain
• Frequent nausea or vomiting
• Blood in your stools
• A change in the frequency or consistency of your stools
• Weight loss
• Constipation or diarrhea
  

Summary

Holding in a fart won't hurt you, but it can be uncomfortable. If you're concerned about how much you're farting, changing your diet can sometimes be helpful.

See your healthcare provider if you have excessive farting along with other symptoms like bloating and abdominal pain.