A social media story alleging that a man suffered multiple and involuntary ejaculations as a result of eating spoiled clams is medically possible, a Kaohsiung-based urologist said.
According to the story, shared on Facebook group “Through the Eyes of ER Doctors” by an anonymous user on Sunday, a man was admitted to hospital for emergency treatment because he had diarrhea and “hourly” involuntary ejaculations after eating “possibly spoiled” clams a day earlier.
A scan of a hospital incident report omitting identifying details was attached to the post.
Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital urologist Wang Chi-chieh (王起杰) said that in spite of its seeming implausibility, it is medically possible.
Wang said if a man developed acute enteritis following the consumption of rotten seafood, rectal inflammation and swelling could compress the seminal vesicle, causing involuntarily ejaculation.
Men have two seminal vesicles and each store 3cm3 of semen. Healthy men between 20 and 39 years of age are able to “completely refill” the seminal vesicles every 24 hours, Wang said.
Assuming that a patient is healthy and that the amount of seminal fluid discharged is between 0.5cm3 and 1cm3 per discharge, the person could sustain involuntarily seminal discharges for an entire day, Wang said.
However, other medical experts are skeptical of the story’s veracity.
Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital deputy superintendent Shieh Ying-Hua (謝瀛華) said the human body is unlikely to support such a feat, describing the story as “most likely an Internet rumor.”
Shu-Tien Urology Ophthalmology Clinic director Lin Ju-ting (林儒廷) said that although sympathetic and parasympathetic neural activity could lead to the reported symptoms, it is “quite improbable” that the body could ejaculate more than 10 times a day, adding that the patient’s ejaculation “might not have been semen.”
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