Man in Ireland injects himself with his own semen, requires medical treatment

The patient had been hoping to cure his chronic back pain

A man in Ireland told doctors in a Dublin hospital that he had been injecting himself with his own semen in hopes of alleviating chronic back pain.

The Irish Times reports that the unnamed 33-year-old man had been injecting himself for a year and a half.

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The man went to a Dublin hospital when he began experiencing severe and sudden onset back pain, which he attributed to his lifting of a heavy steel object three days earlier.

Doctors discovered “an erythematous papule” on the man’s right arm when he was examined.

Later, a radiograph showed that the man had also developed emphysema and oedema – excess watery fluid – under his skin.

The Irish Medical Journal published the report by Dr. Lisa Dunne of Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Tallaght titled “‘Semenly’ Harmless Back Pain: An Unusual Presentation of a Subcutaneous Abscess.”

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Dr. Dunne wrote: “The patient disclosed that he had intravenously injected his own semen as an innovative method to treat back pain. He had devised this 'cure' independent of any medical advice.

“Upon further interrogation of this alternative therapy, he revealed he had injected one monthly “dose” of semen for 18 consecutive months using a hypodermic needle which had been purchased online.

“Upon this occasion, the patient had injected three “doses” of semen intra-vascularly and intra-muscularly.

“It became indurated around the minuscule entry wound where he had failed multiple attempts at injecting the bodily fluid causing an extravasation of semen into the soft tissues.

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“This patient’s back pain improved over the course of his inpatient stay and he opted to discharge himself without availing of an incision and drainage of the local collection.”

Dr. Dunne also noted that there have been no other recorded instances of a patient injecting themselves with semen as a medical treatment previously, and used the case as proof that medical treatments need clinical trials before being utilized.