Health and Medicine
PUBLISHED
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As anyone who's ever dug around in their belly button – perhaps looking for a navel stone – knows, it makes you feel a weird tingle, while some people say that it gives them the urge to pee.
The reason for this strange sensation is that you are actually stimulating a part of your spine.
"At the navel, you have the ability to stimulate not only the skin overlying the navel, but also the fibers of the inner lining of your abdomen," Dr. Christopher Hollingsworth of NYC Surgical Associates told BuzzFeed.
"So, as you stick your finger into your belly button, it sends a signal from the deeper fibers that line your inner abdominal cavity to your spinal cord. Because your spinal cord at that level is also relaying signals from your bladder and urethra, it feels almost the same. You interpret this as discomfort in your bladder."
This only happens when you really jam your finger in there, however, as you won't hit those deeper fibers behind the muscle otherwise.
So there you go.
You haven't accidentally messed with a passageway that leads somehow to your bladder, you have merely fiddled with the pee bit of your spine.
