This was one piss-poor DIY.
A 41-year-old man had been having incontinence, or trouble controlling his bladder, for a month. When he took matters into his own hands, he caused a much more serious medical emergency.
By the time he got to doctors, he couldn’t urinate — which causes excruciating pain.
Doctors were shocked to find that the cause was a “fix” the patient tried to implement on his own.
It turns out the man had superglued his urethra shut over the course of two weeks to treat his incontinence.
A new case report from Iran reveals the strange details of how he landed himself on the operating table and had a “10 cm rod-shaped solid block” removed from his penis.
Finding a foreign object
Doctors who cared for the man note that foreign objects are stuck into penises all the time — tweezers, wires, pencils, fishhooks, needles, thermometers, hot wax, to name a few.
Usually, it’s for some kind of sexual gratification, or disinhibited or disturbed behavior as a result of a psychological or drug-induced mental change. It even happens with curious kids.
But this man didn’t have any history of psychiatric disorders, the doctors said. It appears he simply wanted to treat his incontinence.
He’d dropped superglue into his urethra over the course of two weeks, doctors said. At first, it helped.
But after four days, he started feeling burning pain while peeing, and couldn’t produce as much pee.
By the time he got medical care, he had complete urinary retention, or the inability to pee at all. This is a medical emergency, as it could cause irreversible damage to the kidneys and severe blood infections.
When he got to the doctor’s office, the penis was erect. It’s possible all the superglue could’ve played a role in that.
Doctors were able to feel the hardened glue inside the penis, and saw “brittle fragments” of glue at the opening of the penis head.
Taking out a 4-inch block of glue
Doctors attempted a cystoscopy — where a light and camera are inserted into the urethra and bladder to see what’s going on — but the passage was totally blocked.
To access the blockage, they made a cut on the penis head and flushed the urethra line with saline for 15 minutes.
This allowed the solid superglue block to unstick itself from the urethral wall, and the 10 cm (almost 4 inches) block of glue was pulled out with forceps.
He was stitched back up, and shortly after surgery, his urine was back to normal. Six weeks later, he was back to normal health.
A superglue PSA
In the unlikely event you’re asked what to do about hardened superglue stuck in a penis, here’s what to know.
Superglue can be often found stuck in bodily cavities like the ear and nose — and in those cases, it’s easily dissolved with solvents like acetone.
Authors of this case study note: don’t do that when it’s in a urethra. A solvent can damage the lining of the tube and the bladder.
In this case, the superglue was stuck to the urethral wall, and authors say surgery was the best choice.
