ER doctors have revealed to DailyMail.com the most common sex injuries they see on the job.
Overall, they said it was much more common for men to come in with injuries than women, and that these patients also tended to be in their 20s to 40s.
The doctors also said patients tended to wait a few hours to days before coming in, but strongly advised against this — saying it was critical to be treated promptly.
Dr Barry Hahn, an ER doctor in New York, said: ‘Most of the injuries I see actually tend to be to men and to the penis region… where blood vessels break in the penis and the penis gets misshapen and swollen.’
Dr Darris Gillespie, an ER doctor in Georgia, added that any position that is not missionary carries the risk of a penile, with other doctors saying that reverse cowgirl (where one partner is on top facing away from their lover) was the most accident-prone for the man on bottom.
And while toys might bring excitement into the bedroom, they are also prone to infection or complications. The act of inserting foreign objects into one’s body can also be extremely risky.
Below are the list of the most common injuries, in no particular order:
Doctors have revealed the six most common sex injuries that lead to patients being admitted to the ER
‘Cracked penis’
Both doctors said that among the most common sex-related injuries they treated patients for was a penile fracture, or ‘cracked penis’.
This is where the penis has been injured by bending or a ‘forceful impact’, breaking blood vessels inside and possibly causing it to become swollen and bruised.
Dr Gillespie said: ‘There is no bone in the penis, but there is a large body of spongy tissue.
‘This becomes hard and swollen with blood during arousal, but in some cases people can also fracture the tissue.’
Dr Hahn added: ‘This is a very serious injury, and actually one of the most common injuries that we will see related to sex.’
Patients who have suffered from the injury sometimes report hearing a popping or cracking sound, followed by a swelling of the penis or the sudden loss of an erection. There may also be a lot of bleeding.
Doctors treat penile fractures via surgery to repair the injured tissue with stitches. It can take up to six weeks to recover from the injury.
Trapped penile ring
A penile ring is a type of sex toy used to maintain an erection for a long time.
It is worn around the base of the penis, typically during sexual activity, and allows blood to flow into — but not out of — the organ.
In some cases, however, the ring can become stuck because the penis has become too enlarged with blood and the blood can’t flow out — leading to a trip to the ER.
Dr Gillespie said: ‘If a patient does not sort this out soon, they could suffer from damage to the penis because the tissue is starved of oxygen and new blood.’
The above shows a television remote. In some cases, these have been removed from people’s butts — likely after being inserted for sexual pleasure
To treat the injury, doctors cut off the penile ring without injuring the surrounding penis or tissue.
Dr Gillespie added that patients tended to wait two to three hours for their penis to go down while wearing the ring before seeking treatment.
The doctors said patients could also be admitted with permanent erections after taking too much Viagra, although this was much less common.
Bruised vagina
It is not just the penis that can be injured during sex, with the two doctors saying it is also possible to suffer bruises or cuts to the vagina during the activity.
Dr Gillespie said this can be caused by using a device, or via penetrative sex if the recipient is not sufficiently lubricated.
She warned: ‘These vaginal lacerations, and injuries, they can lead to a large amount of blood loss if they are large enough.
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‘The patient I took care of, they weren’t using anything, it was just penetrative sex with no device, so she told us, although devices are more likely to cause the injury.’
If the cuts are only to the inner lining of the vagina, doctors tend to leave these to heal on their own. But if the tears also affect the vagina’s muscle layer, patients may require stitches.
Dr Hahn revealed a related case where a woman burned her vagina with boiling water shortly after giving birth.
He said: ‘I had this one case, it was not sexually related, but the woman had given birth and afterward she was told to steam her vagina during delivery to enhance recovery.
‘So there she was, squatting over a bowl of boiling water, and she slipped… and basically put her private parts into the boiling water.’
Foreign objects
Patients also come to the ER with objects in their rectums, the doctors said, including bottles, a model Statue of Liberty and even glass light bulbs.
People may stick these objects into themselves for sexual pleasure, but then find that they can no longer remove them.
Doctors said this happens because the objects can lodged against the side of the butt to create a vacuum. Objects that are ribbed and have no base are more likely to get stuck.
The doctors also said that in some cases people have suffered from heart attacks during sex because of the sudden strenuous physical activity involved
Dr Gillespie said: ‘We do see people who have used some sort of stimulation device, or something else, that then ends up getting stuck up there and they can’t remove it.
‘Every once in a while, we do see an item that is more dangerous up there like glass, and that can break — which means we need to perform surgery to remove it.’
Objects may be removed from the butt manually by doctors who use their hands or specific medical tools. If there the object is glass, surgery will be used to quickly extract it.
Both doctors said they had not seen cases of patients putting items up their urethra, the tube running through the penis that carries urine and semen out of the body, but they said cases had been reported in medical literature.
In a similar case, another doctor told DailyMail.com about a patient who came to the ER twice after getting the same object stuck up their behind. Upon the second visit, doctors said they should ‘find a new hobby’.
Heart attack during sex
About 805,000 Americans suffer from a heart attack every year, surveillance suggests — with some of these being triggered by sex.
Dr Gillespie said: ‘I have seen people who have had a heart attack during intercourse and a cardiac arrest.
‘Sometimes, people also develop a serious headache afterward and then have a ruptured aneurysm [in the brain – a stroke].
‘This tends to happen among older adults and those who are not so conditioned to the activity, per se.’
She said the heart attack could affect anyone who has heart problems, but that this injury tends to be linked to older adults.
During sex, people have a sudden rush of feel-good hormones which significantly raise heart rate. If the heart already has complications, then the activity could lead to a heart attack.
The main warning sign of suffering from a heart attack during sex, according to Ohio State University, is a sudden chest pain that doesn’t go away.
Other signs of heart disease that may only emerge in the bedroom include erectile dysfunction, snoring and suffering from heart palpitations while resting.
