Doctors have treated the first-ever case of rice-related food poisoning which affected the genital region.
According to Mail Online, a 38-year-old was treated by urologists after suffering redness, swelling, and scabbing on his pen!s, which had persisted for a week.
Further investigations revealed that the troubling symptoms had begun soon after he’d suffered severe diarrhoea and vomiting.
The doctors, at the American University of Beirut Medical Center in Lebanon, where he was treated, took a swab of the man’s penis to test for infection.
The patient had eaten a meal containing rice with his family just a day before his symptoms started.
They found evidence of the bacteria bacillus cereus, which is usually found in rice that’s been left out at room temperature for too long and can cause sickness and stomach upsets if eaten.
The doctors concluded that the man’s unusual genital infection had been caused by an episode of diarrhoea and vomiting that occurred almost immediately after ‘vigorous sex’ with his wife.
The bacteria was said to have made direct contact with the patient’s groin.
The doctors remarked that it was ‘unusual’ to see bacillus cereus in the skin, let alone the genitals.
This was the ‘first case in literature’ of the food poisoning in the penis.
The man, a father of two, was treated using a topical antibiotic called fucidic acid, usually used to treat eye infections.
The patient was also told to wash the area ‘properly’ and avoid sex and masturbation until it healed.
One month after the infection the patient said he had no burning, or discomfort in the genital area and the infection did not come back.
The doctors explain bacillus cereus can cause you to be sick just 30 minutes after eating.
Symptoms are relatively mild and usually last about 24 hours, according to the NHS.
The study, published in the journal Annals of Medicine and Surgery, noted that penile infections usually occur after an injury that creates an open wound and typically involves the bacteria group A streptococcus.
Study authors wrote: ‘In this current case, it is plausible that the diarrhoea and vomitus which contaminated the penis post intercourse is likely the source of the skin infection.’