He toked up. And then couldn’t get it down.
Last week, a 32-year-old Georgia man whose identity was spared was rushed to the emergency room not once, but twice, for painful erections. Doctors believe that his unfortunate conditions may have been caused by marijuana use, reports The New York Post.
The man went to the hospital the first time after his boner lasted 12 hours. The medical team treated the hard-tissue issue — but two weeks later, the man returned with another persistent stiffy that had lasted for six hours, according to a report published earlier this month in the Journal of Cannabis Research.
The diagnosis: priapism, or an erection that lasts more than four hours and is not related to sexual activity.
The care-giving team from Coliseum Medical Centers said the otherwise-healthy man admitted to getting high several nights per week for the previous six months, and that included within a two-hour period of getting those tough-to-soften hard-ons. He had previously stiffened up on other occasions, including when he started smoking as a teenager, but the episodes went away on their own after nearly four hours.
“He quit cannabis use in his twenties, and during this period did not have any episodes of priapism,” the team said in the report, speculating that the issue could have been triggered by prolonged weed use.
But a urologist, Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, voiced skepticism to Insider, saying there’s little previous research to link marijuana use to priapism.
“Everything here is hypothetical until validated by research,” Brahmbhatt told Insider. “Marijuana is a vasodilator so it could lead to over-dilation of the penile vessels. Oftentimes marijuana can be tainted with other drugs/chemicals, so the additives could be the cause of the problem.”
It may seem like fun and games for randy activity, but Brahmbhatt says priapism is no joke.
“The concern is if the erection lasts more than four hours the penis can lose vital oxygen and nutrients,” Brahmbhatt says. “This can lead to pain, swelling, loss of future erections, and loss of the penis.”
