Man suffers seven-week erection
ninemsn, Sam Downing
12:20pm January 15, 2014
An erection that plagued a man in Ireland for an incredible seven weeks was finally subdued by hard-working doctors.
The unidentified Irish man's troubles began when he suffered a blow to his perineum — the small area between the genitals and the anus — after falling on the crossbar of his mountain bike, according to a report in the Irish Medical Journal.
The pain and bruising from the accident went down within days — but unfortunately his "rigid erection" did not.
Five weeks later the man finally sought help at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, where he was diagnosed with "high-flow" priapism but no other injuries.
Priapism is defined by Andrology Australia as "an erection that lasts for more than three hours [which] is usually very painful".
"It was an anxious time for the patient, as it would be for any young man," Dr Ronan Browne, a radiologist at Tallaght Hospital, told the Irish Examiner.
Doctors first tried to treat the man's condition with "manual compression" that gave him temporary relief, but "his penis rapidly refilled with blood to full tumescence".
For the next two weeks he was treated with a pressure dressing, but as soon as it was removed the erection sprang back.
The man's problem was finally cowed into submission when hospital staff inserted gel foam and four tiny platinum coils into the "abnormal connection" between an artery and a vein that supplied blood to his penis, which had been damaged in the bike accident.
"We were very happy with the outcome," Dr Browne said.
It's likely that no one was as happy as the man, who reported "satisfactory erection and sexual intercourse" one month after the ordeal.
ninemsn, Sam Downing
12:20pm January 15, 2014
An erection that plagued a man in Ireland for an incredible seven weeks was finally subdued by hard-working doctors.
The unidentified Irish man's troubles began when he suffered a blow to his perineum — the small area between the genitals and the anus — after falling on the crossbar of his mountain bike, according to a report in the Irish Medical Journal.
The pain and bruising from the accident went down within days — but unfortunately his "rigid erection" did not.
Five weeks later the man finally sought help at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, where he was diagnosed with "high-flow" priapism but no other injuries.
Priapism is defined by Andrology Australia as "an erection that lasts for more than three hours [which] is usually very painful".
"It was an anxious time for the patient, as it would be for any young man," Dr Ronan Browne, a radiologist at Tallaght Hospital, told the Irish Examiner.
Doctors first tried to treat the man's condition with "manual compression" that gave him temporary relief, but "his penis rapidly refilled with blood to full tumescence".
For the next two weeks he was treated with a pressure dressing, but as soon as it was removed the erection sprang back.
The man's problem was finally cowed into submission when hospital staff inserted gel foam and four tiny platinum coils into the "abnormal connection" between an artery and a vein that supplied blood to his penis, which had been damaged in the bike accident.
"We were very happy with the outcome," Dr Browne said.
It's likely that no one was as happy as the man, who reported "satisfactory erection and sexual intercourse" one month after the ordeal.
