DOCS have revealed how a man's penis rotted away after he injected VASELINE to try and make it bigger.

The unnamed 45-year-old man went to A&E after five days of suffering from an itchy sensation at the base of his member.

He then noticed a significant build-up of fluid and ulcers on the shaft of his penis, which were starting to rot and bleed.

The patient, from the South pacific islands, was also feeling weak and suffering fevers.

He told doctors that he had self-injected petroleum jelly into his shaft two years earlier, in an attempt to boost his penis size.

Writing in a journal published in Urology Case Reports, Dr Amer Amin said the man was an "unwell looking man" with high fevers.

He added that the penile shaft was "grossly deformed", tender and had a serious build-up of fluid.

There were also small patches of visible rotting flesh and he was diagnosed with a condition called Fournier's gangrene – a life-threatening "flesh-eating bug" of the genitals.

Emergency surgery

He was rushed into the operating theatre where surgeons removed the dead flesh and drained the pus-filled pockets along his shaft.

The man was taken to intensive care to recover ahead of further surgery planned for the next day.

In total, he needed three operations to remove all of the infected and rotted tissue – mostly involving the scrotum, docs said.

By his 10th day in hospital, his fevers had settled and his bloods had stabilised.

He was transferred to the plastic surgery team, who performed multiple skin grafts on his penis and scrotum.

The man was allowed home from hospital after a month.

Dangerous

In his report on the case, Dr Amin, of St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, said: "A 45-year-old man from the South pacific islands was successfully treated with surgical debridement, intensive care unit admission and antibiotics after presenting to hospital with Fournier's gangrene.

"Two years prior, he had self-administered Vaseline to the shaft of the penis in order to augment penile size."

He had self-administered Vaseline to the shaft of the penis in order to augment penile size

He added: "Penile self-injections are performed in order to attempt to increase penile size and have been reported to cause latent pain, ulceration and Fournier's gangrene.

"Common materials used for penile augmentation that have been described in the literature are mineral oil, petroleum jelly, nandrolone deconoate and waxes."

He added: "The most likely reason for the development of Fournier's in this patient would be related to having a foreign material, in the form of petroleum jelly, in the subcutaneous planes of the penile shaft which have secondarily become infected after the integrity of the skin barrier was breached after itching at the area.

MORE CASE REPORTS

"Interestingly, our patient reported that this practice was fairly commonplace in the south pacific islands."

In a recently published case series, experts have reported complications in a group of men performing these practices in Thailand.

They found that time between injection and the presentation of symptoms was around 36 months.

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