A teenager who went to hospital because he couldn’t urinate for three days was found to have a sewing needle inside his penis.
The 14-year-old, from Tunis in Tunisia, admitted he had pushed the needle inside himself for sexual pleasure.
Doctors had to use forceps to pull out the sharp object which had become lodged 5cm (2inches) inside him.
In a case report they said cases like this are ‘very rare’ and revealed patients’ diagnoses are often delayed because of ‘shame and embarrassment’.
The team listed two dozen other bizarre objects people have had to have removed from their genitals, including wires, straws, light bulbs and even a squirrel’s tail.
Doctors found a 9cm (3.5ins) long needle (pictured) inside the teenager’s penis and had to use forceps to pull it out under general anaesthetic
X-rays revealed the needle was lodged in the boy’s penis, but doctors were unable to see the object because it was at least 5cm (2inches) into the urinary passage
Doctors at the La Rabta Hospital in Tunisia’s capital revealed the gruesome story in a medical case report.
They said the boy told doctors he had pushed the 9cm (3.5ins) needle into his urethra – the tube urine travels along – for ‘erotic stimulation’.
It had been pushed in so far that the doctors couldn’t see it, and an examination revealed it was 5cm along the tube.
Medics put the misguided schoolboy under general anaesthetic and used forceps to pull out the sharp metal object.
The team, led by Dr Selim Zaghbib, wrote: ‘Postoperative period was uneventful.
‘The patient was discharged after one day and referred to the psychiatric department which confirmed that he had no mental trouble.’
And they added that the boy’s school psychologist was involved in his follow-up care but they didn’t find he had any psychological issues.
Inserting items into the urethra for is a well-established sexual fetish which is also known as sounding.
The needle could have caused injury to the urethra or bladder and led to infection or even gangrene, the doctors warned
Although specialised sex toys are available for the risky pastime, medical journals have reported numerous cases of both men and women getting household objects stuck inside themselves.
Dr Zaghbib’s team revealed a horrifying list of items people have been caught with.
They wrote: ‘Cases reporting urethral foreign bodies… affect both sexes, with a male predominance, and all age groups.
‘The wide variety of self-inserted foreign bodies include needles, pencils, ball point pens, garden wire, copper wire, speaker wire, safety pins, telephone cables, straws, string, toothbrushes, Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices [IUDs], household batteries, light bulbs, marbles, cotton tip swabs, plastic cups, thermometers, plants and vegetables, and even parts of animals (leeches, squirrel tail, snakes, bones).’
Using unsterilised or damaging objects could cause infections, gangrene, injuries to the urethra or bladder, or a narrowing of the urinary tract, they said.
But people continue to experiment despite the risks, because of the potential for pleasure.
Jess Wilde, from adult toy website Lovehoney, explained to the Metro: ‘The urethra is lined with super-sensitive nerve endings, which can be extremely pleasurable when stimulated.
‘Additionally, for those with a penis, deep urethral play is the only way to directly massage the prostate.
‘For those with a vulva, the urethra is extremely close to other pleasure zones and actually passes straight through the internal anatomy of the clitoris/G-spot.’
Experts emphasise the importance of using only specialised toys for the purpose, and not objects found laying about the house.
The Tunisian doctors’ paper was published in the journal Urology Case Reports.
THE MAN WHOSE PENIS ‘TURNED TO BONE’
A man who went into hospital for knee X-ray got the shock of his life when doctors discovered his penis was turning to bone.
The 63-year-old had taken himself to A&E after he fell over in the street and landed on his behind.
Despite not hitting his head and being able to get up and keep walking without any help, he was worried that his knee had started hurting.
While he was being checked over, doctors X-rayed his pelvis to check there were no broken bones but found something stranger than they’d bargained for.
They diagnosed him with an ossification – essentially a body part slowly turning into bone, they reported in Urology Case Reports.
Doctors X-rayed the man’s pelvis to check he hadn’t damaged any bones in the fall and they discovered that bits of bone were showing up in his penis (Pictured: Outlines of the bone formations can be seen pointing downwards from the right hand side of the bottom of the pelvis)
They said ossification in the penis is normally a consequence of Peyronie’s disease, in which internal scarring causes the sex organ to bend sharply in one direction.
Richard Viney, a urological surgeon in Birmingham, was not involved with the case study but explained it was likely caused by extreme Peyronie’s disease.
He said the man’s condition was caused by bone forming in part of the penis called the Bucks fascia, which is essentially its tough inner lining along the shaft.
‘In very rare cases, the scarring process [of Peyronie’s disease] is so excessive it can involve the deposition of calcium, toughening the scar tissue and this is what is being described in this case,’ he told MailOnline.
‘It is easy to think that the patient’s entire penis is calcifying but it is only the fibrous Bucks fascia just below the skin.
‘These plaques would be palpable and hard to the touch. They can be quite extensive and it is possible with time that all of Bucks fascia could be involved, but this is unlikely.
‘As the stretchiness of the fascia is lost, erections would be limited in their scope and there may be considerable bend. Indeed there may well be complete erectile failure.’