h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

PTFE threadseal tape is highly resistant to chemical attack. If you wadded it into a ball and swallowed it, it would go through you completely unscathed by stomach acids or anything else. Which got me thinking...

If you wadded up the first few inches of a roll of threadseal tape (typical length 12m) and swallowed it WITHOUT detaching it from the roll, would it go all the way through your alimetary canal (typical length 9m)?

Would it reach the other end and come out without breaking the tape?

If it did... could you floss your body?

If you did... what would that even feel like?

Would you feel it at all, apart from perhaps gagging a bit?

Are there any hazards to trying it?

And has anyone already tried it and reported the results?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Sounds like tapeworm therapy (which is a “thing” I’m led to believe).

I guess that might be a dangerous experiment.
Your gullet might keep trying to pull in the tape at a higher rate than the rest of your digestive tract can handle.
Your stomach exit might not close properly, leading to the wrong stuff getting through.
You might end up with a knot in your belly.
Your resident tape worm might sue you for breach of contract on exclusive use.

More like a tap worm than a tape worm.

I need to think about this for a while. I'll get back to you.

I suppose it is safer to flush than to floss

No. I'm not going to try this. really. no.... I wonder to what extent the sphincters would haulter its progress, as asides the two anal sphincters, there are others going into, and at the going out, of the stomach, etc... I'm pretty sure, were the tape, stopping these from fully closing, they'd be all kinds of problems with stomach acid leaking off out in both directions, to where it oughta not be which could be painful and distructive having said which, when my hair was at its longest, removing pretty--long strands of it, from either end was not unusual - only actually horrible when it was from the mouth end, as it did rather 'pull up' some bile with it and effectively give some acid reflux

If you're interested in having it done as an experiment, then a scientific enterprise of some sort would be the logical place to approach about it. H2G2.com, for all its other fine attributes, has not become the first place people think of when they want to find out about empirical science.

Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic, and numerous teaching hospitals would be logical places to look. One of the first questions they would be likely to ask would be, "What purpose is this supposed to serve?" If there's a practical purpose such as offering a comparison between different methods of cleaning out the alimentary system in preparation for, say, a colonoscopy, then a properly staffed hospital lab would put in place all the safeguards necessary to prevent injury or death, plus methods to reduce the likelihood that a positive result came about because people expected it it to.

You first Hoovooloo.

Watch out though. You might whistle when you fart.

paulh - what on earth do you think you are doing, taking this something like seriously???

Aside from the environment around him, paulh takes little seriously.

Where-as you, on the other hand, will often take the stance of extreme seriousness where others have intended humour, Hoo.

I know I'm full of surprises.

Well, I was joking too... Taking things way too seriously is one of my favourite forms of humour. That and fart jokes.

I kind of figured you were joking, Hoovooloo.

I always enjoyed John Cleese's way of playing people who are so serious that they're absurd -- and insanely funny (or funnily insane? )

I like the new comic path that you are going down, though you may have label your jokes at times .

I'VE SEEN THIS!

Yes, you can.


I saw someone do exactly this in the documentary about Robert Crumb. One of his two brothers featured in the documentary. He earns money begging on the streets in some quazi Buddhist mode sitting lotus style on a bed of nails. Occasionally, as some sort of "cleansing" ritual he runs some sort of cloth tape or ribbon through his body.

...

I didn't find a clip of that scene, but I did just now learn more about it. It's a Yogic technique called Vastra Dhauti, literally "cloth cleaning".

I've suddenly lost the desire to become a Buddhist.

As long as you don't tie the ends together...

Hmm... Vastra dhauti seems to involve swallowing a cloth, letting it sit in your stomach for a while, then pulling it back out the way it went in. Very much not what I had in mind...