TikToker Claims Fart Near Her Face Caused 7 Years Of Sinus Infections

Forbes

31-05-2025

Should you be worried about more than just a smell when a fart goes up your nose? (Photo: Getty)
You may have caught wind of what Christine Connell said about an ex and his bare-butted fart in a TikTok video that's already been viewed over 436,000 times. In the video, Connell claimed that she's had either chronic or recurrent sinusitis for about seven years ever since her significant other at the time let out a particularly foul-smelling fart rather near her face. Now, getting farted upon is probably not something that will elicit a 'I love you too,' response but was she justified in letting loose on him for causing a rather unusual persistent infection in her sinuses, you know those four paired hollow spaces within the bones of your skull and face?
Well, here's the backstory, so to speak, that Connell provided across two different TikTok posts. Years ago, she and her then beau were in a hotel room that had two queen-sized beds. She was under the covers in one of the beds, recovering from an ankle operation. Meanwhile her significant other was standing naked between the beds when his bare butt then turned towards her face. And stories that begin with his bare butt then turned towards your face, don't necessarily end that well.
'That is when the fart happened,' Connell exclaimed in a TikTok video. 'I've never, ever, ever smelled anything that compares to that.' And Connell probably didn't mean it in a "Nothing Compares 2 U" way. In another TikTok video, she elaborated, 'When I say that it was the worst fart that I have ever smelled in my life, I truly mean that.'
She did clarify that it the whole fart thing didn't seem intentional. It's not as if he had a particular beef with her and enacted a gaseous revenge. Instead, as she explained, 'He was just getting into bed and my face happened to be in the path of the fart that was released.'
The story didn't end there. Connell described how she then spent the next seven years dealing with repeated sinus infections Apparently, these sinus infections remained rather recalcitrant to standard treatments until her doctor took a sample from her nose for testing. This sample did not grow out Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis, Streptococcus pyogenes or any of the usual bacterial suspects when it comes to causing sinusitis. No, instead, it grew out the bacteria known as Escherichia coli or E. coli for short.
In one of her TikTok posts, Connell gave the poop on where you might commonly find E. coli saying, 'E. coli is from poop.' Yep, it's often in poop because E. coli is a common inhabitant of your intestines. Your sinuses are usually connected to your nasal passages to help warm and humidify air and produce mucus for you, but they shouldn't be connected to your butt. This led Connell to question, 'How does that [meaning E. coli] get in your sinuses unless you have a boyfriend who farts disgustingly and you are forced to inhale it because you are immobile after ankle surgery?'
Connell felt that her surgery left her especially susceptible to getting infected by E. Coli. 'I had just had ankle surgery that I was recovering from, so I imagine that my immune system was focused on healing that,' she added. 'I think that maybe in another circumstance, like if I had been healthy, it wouldn't have happened.'
Sinusitis is where one or more of the sinuses in your face pictured here get inflamed. ... More (Illustration: Getty)
This clearly seems to be a 'Fart and the Furious' situation. Having sinusitis is certainly not fun. You can find a bunch of sinusitis symptoms and issues on the Mayo Clinic website. One common symptom is your nose producing thick, discolored mucus that can run both directions from your nose, forward resulting in a runny nose and backward resulting in postnasal drip. Your nose can also get blocked, makes it difficult to breathe. Sinusitis, which means inflammation of the sinuses, can result in pain, tenderness or even swelling in or around different parts of your face and head such as your eyes, ears, cheeks, forehead, mouth, teeth, throat and head in general as well. All of this can impair your senses like smell and taste too. Then there's the potential bad breath and fatigue.
Sinusitis is considered acute when symptoms last less than four weeks. Viruses are the most common cause of acute sinusitis. Sinusitis creeps into the subacute category when symptoms last a bit longer from four and 12 weeks. Once symptoms persist beyond 12 weeks, the sinusitis falls into the chronic ranks with bacteria being the most common culprit although other pathogens like viruses and fungi can still cause chronic sinusitis as well. Allergies can cause different durations of sinusitis too. The other category of sinusitis is recurrent acute sinusitis when symptoms return at least four times in a given year but in each case last no longer than two weeks.
You may be able to manage acute sinusitis symptoms yourself with over-the counter medications like decongestants and drinking plenty of fluids. You should see you doctor if you have such symptoms for longer than 10 days or repeated bouts of sinusitis. That's because you may need prescription strength decongestants, a nasal steroid spray or even antibiotics. The doctor can also check to see if you have some kind anatomical issue like a deviated setpum or nasal polyps predisposing you for sinus infections.
In rare cases, the infection causing chronic sinusitis can spread to other parts of your body and wreak havoc. For example, spread to the eye sockets can lead to vision issues and even blindness. Spread to the meninges, the membranes that wrap around your brain like Saran wrap around a knish, can result in their inflammation, which is called meningitis and can be life-threatening. Spread to the bones can cause osteomyelitis and to the skin can result in cellulitis.
The Cleveland Clinic website lists various risk factors for sinusitis such as nasal allergies, asthma, nasal polyps, a deviated septum, smoking and a weakened immune system. But it does not include getting farted upon. Some of the bacteria and viruses that can cause sinusitis can travel through the air. So when someone actively infected with one of these pathogens coughs, sneezes or in some cases just breathes near you, you can end up catching the pathogen. If the pathogen then settles in one of your sinuses, presto, bingo you can have sinusitis. Other pathogens require more direct contact to be transmitted. This can be via direct skin-to-skin contact or other body-part-to-body-part contact or contact with contaminated body fluids, objects or other substances.
E. coli falls more into this latter category. While Red Bull may give you wings, this isn't usually the case with E. coli. These bacteria don't have the means to fly through the air themselves. So it would be unusual for E. coli to be transmitted without some kind of direct contact with something contaminated with the bacteria.
Could a particularly juicy fart, though, spray E. coli and other poop microbes like a confetti cannon? Well, in 2020 when writing in Forbes about whether you should be worried about getting COVID-19 via farts, I did reference a study published in a 2001 issue of BMJ. This study had a subject fart towards a Petri dish first while wearing pants and then do the same without pants. When the subject was wearing pants and cut the cheese, nothing grew in the dish. However when the subject went sans pants and played the bottom trumpet, the fart resulted in clumps of bacteria growing in the Petri dish. This suggested that a fart could indeed propel such microbes into the air. There were a number of ifs, ands and buts to this bare butted study though. For one, it didn't measure how far such microbes could travel. For another, just because you get hit by some microbes doesn't mean that there are enough of those microbes to cause an infection.
There's also a lack of documented cases of E. coli infections resulting from fart transmissions. Of course, one caveat is that farts are not exactly the hottest topic of scientific study these days. More research would be needed to know what farts and any accompanying doo doo can do. So it's not completely clear whether the TikToker's fart claims were completely full of hot air.
Basically, the jury is still out on whether the toot was the root of the TikToker's sinus infection. Since it didn't happen under experimental conditions, you can't tell whether the ex could have transmitted the E. coli. more directly through other means. For example, maybe the ex didn't wash his hands between touching his butt and her. You can use your imagination as to how else direct contact could have occurred. Also, who knows what other direct exposure the TikToker could have had that didn't involve her ex. She for example could have touched something with E. coli on it and then not washed her hands thoroughly enough before touching her nose.
So, all of this doesn't mean that you should have an excessive fear of farts. Naturally, you may not want to say, 'Please fart directly into my face.' And there are multiple other reasons why you might want others around you to wear underwear and pants. But even if someone lets loose somewhat near you while bare bummed, doesn't necessarily mean that you should be worried about catching something besides a whiff.