Whatever your symptom or problem, don’t worry about spilling it to your doctor—chances are, he’s seen it before.
So if sex becomes a little, um, imaginatively adventurous, and things go south fast, the best thing you can do is seek medical care when you need it. Don’t wait for things to get better on their own.
One Italian man probably wishes he heeded that advice. The 47-year-old finally sought out emergency care after spending two days with a 3 x 2 inch glass drinking glass stuck in his rectum, according to BMJ Case Reports. He inserted it in there for “sexual stimulation,” he said.
And clinical cases of these “rectal foreign body” extractions are rising, the researchers say—particularly in men. Common objects retrieved include bottles, sex toys, and vegetables, among others. Most guys try to get the objects out themselves, but the majority of the time, they fail.
This man tried to remove the glass bottle himself, too. But during his attempt, the glass broke, which finally persuaded him to hit up the emergency room.
Surprisingly, the man showed no signs of bleeding, but an X-ray did confirm the presence of a bottoms-up broken glass lodged in his rectum. (Think that’s bad? Here are the 10 worst things that can happen to your penis.)
About 75 percent of rectal foreign bodies cases that haven’t yet caused any inflammation to the abdomen’s lining, the patient can be successfully treated in the emergency room without surgery, the researchers say. But the doctors need to take other factors into consideration when deciding as well, such as the patient’s anxiety level, material of the object, and location of the object.
And in the case of this man, the fact that the glass had already broken inside of him made regular extraction more dangerous.
In fact, the researchers detailed a similar case where doctors used forceps to manually try to remove a drinking glass from another man’s rectum. The forceps fractured the glass, and the patient had to undergo a temporary colostomy—an operation that creates an opening for the colon through the abdomen.
That’s why the doctors chose to perform the Italian’s man extraction in the operating room under general anesthesia. They used a proctoscope to remove the glass, which didn’t shatter any further, and the man recovered without any complications.
Bottom line: Anything that can shatter into sharp shards doesn’t belong in any delicate orifice of your body. Dangers of inserting these foreign objects include anal sphincter injury—which could cause fecal incontinence, or lack of control over bowel movements—inflammation or narrowing of the anal canal, holes or tears in the rectum, or a bowel obstruction.
That can mean serious complications. So if you’re looking for more sexual stimulation in bed, put down the drinking glass or any other DIY-object and expand your repertoire with one of these 30 best sex toys for men instead. And again, if something gets stuck somewhere, loop in a medical pro—that’s not something you want to put in your own hands.
