In Papua New Guinea, a trend practiced illegally or by the patient himself worries doctors: injecting oil into the penis to make it grow.
After penis whitening in Asia, an equally worrying trend is gaining momentum. This time, it is in Papua New Guinea that the health authorities are sounding the alarm. Several worrying cases of penile deformities have been reported in Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea.
Doctors have seen patients who have injected coconut, sunflower or silicone oil directly inside their penises in order to enlarge it. A surgeon at Port Moresby General Hospital, Akule Danop said that over the past two years his clinic had treated at least 500 men suffering from penile deformity and dysfunction following injections.
“I’ve seen five new cases every week for the past two years and those are the ones who came forward for treatment. We don’t know how many of them are there,” he told The Daily Mail. Guardian.
Ulcers and difficulty urinating
Often performed by the patients themselves, these injections can lead to very serious health complications and sometimes cause damage requiring skin grafts: “most patients have abnormal lumpy masses that grow on the penis and sometimes on the the scrotum. A good number of them have ulcers, which eventually burst. Some have difficulty urinating because the foreskin is so swollen that it cannot contract”, describes Dr Danlop.
According to the doctor, who had to operate on 90 patients with similar symptoms, this phenomenon concerns men aged 16 to 55 from various social backgrounds. Other cases have reportedly been observed outside Port Moresby – notably in the towns of Lae, Vanimo, Madang, and Goroka – says the surgeon, the only one qualified to perform interventions for this type of case in Port Moresby.
Akule Danlop and other doctors are collecting information from affected patients to learn more about their reasons for injecting drugs and whether exposure to pornography influenced their decision.
“If they do this, it is mainly to increase the length and intensity of their sexual experience with their partner”, analyzes Dr Glen Mola, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Papua New Guinea. Drs Danlop and Mola stress the urgent need to raise awareness of the dangers of penile oil injections through the media and information campaigns.
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