Thousands of people are hospitalized each year in the United States for putting foreign objects up their butts.
While these typically include sex toys, water bottles, or even the occasional light bulb, during the holiday season the objects take on a particularly festive theme.
Two emergency room doctors told DailyMail.com that there is a constant flow of people showing up to the emergency department (ED) with objects stuck in their butts all year round.
But Dr. Barry Hahn, a New York-based emergency physician, said, “During the holiday season, people tend to become more festive and more inventive with the objects they want to celebrate with.”
“Children usually swallow these things, but adults tend to place them in strategic places on the lower body.”
Both doctors revealed that they had treated people with Christmas decorations stuck to their butts, as well as models of snowmen and Christmas trees.
In stranger cases, they have recovered a candy cane, miniature models of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, and even a Buzz Lightyear figurine.
Doctors say that in many cases people had inserted the objects into their anus to obtain sexual pleasure.
The image above is an x-ray of a patient who arrived with a candy cane lodged in his butt.
Doctors also told DailyMail.com about previous situations where people arrived at A&E with Buzz Lightyear stuck in their butt.
Few additional details could be revealed about the holiday cases due to privacy rules, but doctors repeatedly warn people not to stick household items or holiday decorations on their butts.
In a TikTok by Dr. Adam Gaston, the emergency room doctor listed items to keep away from your buttocks, including models of nutcracker soldiers, as well as porcelain and plastic Christmas trees.
Dr. Stuart Fischer, an emergency room doctor in New York City, revealed to DailyMail.com the wide range of items he’s had to retrieve from people’s butts, holiday and otherwise.
The doctor has removed everything from deceased animals to dental products and even a doorknob.
He said: “I once saw a gerbil, but unfortunately it didn’t survive because it suffocated.”
“We knew it was there when we took an x-ray that revealed the animal’s skeleton.”
He added: ‘In another case, a person came in with a stuck family-sized toothpaste dispenser, where you push the top and the toothpaste comes out.
“To describe how it happened, he said: “I was talking to some friends and then I sat in the chair and then I realized there was something uncomfortable and I felt some discomfort, that’s why I came to the emergency room. room.”‘
The above shows two elements that doctors urged people not to lift their butts. Both were sold at Target.
The patients were successfully treated using anesthetics to help relax the anal muscles and allow doctors to remove the objects inside.
But Dr. Fischer highlighted the complications someone could face when placing household items in the opening.
Household items placed in the rectum could end up stuck because the narrow walls of the rectum can create a suction-like reflex, making it difficult to remove an object if it does not have a base.
Objects inside the rectum can break under pressure, which can cause a perforation or cut in the intestine, leading to bleeding and possible infection.
Doctors warn people who have placed objects inside their buttocks to seek help immediately.
In most cases, surgeons remove the objects the same way they came in. The patient is sedated, which relaxes the anal muscles and allows the objects to be removed.
In cases where this is not successful, patients may require surgery.
An analysis by researchers at the University of Rochester in New York found that nearly 40,000 Americans were hospitalized for having objects stuck in their rectum between 2012 and 2021, the equivalent of nearly 4,000 per year.
Men accounted for nearly eight in 10 cases, with the most common group being men in their 20s and 30s, who accounted for a third of all related emergency visits.
They found that bottles, jars or bottle caps were the most common non-sexual devices found stuck in people’s rectums, accounting for 10 percent of cases.