There are tales of people getting foreign objects stuck in their bodies, including stories involving foreign objects getting stuck in the rectum.

The Story Of The Shower Head In The Rectum

An unidentified man visited the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in New Delhi. He required medical attention for a shower head stuck his rectum.

The findings of this story were published on May 26 in the journal BMJ.

"We report a case of a 26-year-old young man with accidental insertion of hand shower in the rectum and no signs of any active bleed or peritonism," the doctors wrote in BMJ.

The anonymous man said that he "suffered a fall" in the shower, which caused the shower head to get stuck in his rectum. He reportedly had to detach the shower head from the wall in order to go to the hospital.

"Though the patient reported accidental insertion of the shower head and denied voluntary insertion, there is a high suspicion of voluntary insertion for autoerotic purpose," Dr. Peeyush Kumar said, according to LADbible.

Doctors conducted a medical scan to diagnose the patient. The scan showed that the shower head was 6 inches into his pelvis. However, there was no internal damage, and his vitals showed that he was stable.

A Surgery To Remove The Shower Head

The National Institutes of Health recommends that bedside extraction should always be the first option for removal of foreign objects in the anus. However, if there is peritonitis, then it is suggested that an emergency laparotomy be performed.

Luckily for the man, Dr. Kumar has plenty of experience removing objects from the rectums of patients.

"Extraction was done successfully in the operating room under general anaesthesia, with an uneventful postprocedure period and the patient was discharged after 48 hours of observation," the doctors wrote in BMJ.

A Larger Problem Of Foreign Objects Getting Stuck In The Rectum

Most general practitioners will lack the equipment in their offices to safely remove these foreign objects. It is recommended that patients go to a hospital's emergency room.

However, as Dr. Kumar pointed out, there is usually a "a high level of embarrassment and social stigma" associated with these patients. Thus, they sometimes do not seek medical attention.

He also said that most patients are men in their 30s and 40s. Autoerotic purposes usually play a role in this.

Another challenge is that many patients show no signs or symptoms. If there are signs, they usually include fever, abdominal pain, and bleeding.