A woman in England recently ended up in the hospital with a butt plug stuck inside her. Doctors spent an hour peering inside her butt with a camera and fishing the thing out. Any avid sex toy user might understandably be alarmed by this story. Is it really possible to get a sex toy stuck inside you? And if so, how do you make sure that doesn't happen?
Not to scare anyone, but general surgeon Aileen Murphy, M.D., has seen multiple patients with sex toys stuck in them, mostly in the rectum. If you're not lubricated and an object passes through the sphincters, the rectoanal canal can create a vacuum of sorts, she tells Bustle. Then, you have to get surgery either in lithotomy (the position you give birth in) or through an operation that goes into abdomen and extracts the object from above. Either way, it does not sound like fun.
However, she adds, this isn't so common. "Most sex toys are either small enough to be removed manually or have a large base to prevent it from becoming lodged in the rectum," she says. "It is actually more common to get food, bottles, candles, and other household items lodged in the rectum."
OB/GYN Aimee Eyvazzadeh, M.D., tells Bustle she's also had patients who either were out with friends and had 'had no idea how it got there' or they admit how it got there but are embarrassed. She's seen everything from vibrators that are still buzzing to jars of baby food stuck in people's butts and vaginas.
"A general surgeon will tell you that you aren't the first person that this has happened to and you definitely won't be the last."
To prevent this from happening, Murphy advises only putting things up your butt or vagina that are meant to go there. In other words, stick with sex toys and avoid household objects. Make sure your toys have a base, handle, string, or something else to let you pull it out. And if it seems like something's not retrievable, swallow your pride, stop trying to get it out yourself, and go to the ER. Leaving it in can lead to vaginal infections, anal tears, and other problems.
"If you keep trying, you can cause permanent damage to yourself, making it more difficult to go poop in the future," says Eyvazzadeh. "A general surgeon will tell you that you aren't the first person that this has happened to and you definitely won't be the last, so while you may feel embarrassed and stay home to see if it's going to come out on its own, it won't." So there you have it.
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