It was around 10am on a week day. I got a call from a General Practitioner working in Colombo saying that he had a most unusual 'case'. He had a patient in his mid fifties who was having a painful erection of the penis which had not gone down for the last four hours. I told him that it was most probably a case of "priapism". It got its name from the Roman God Priapus who was always depicted as having a full erection. This god was the center of all the Bachchanalian orgies. The cause of Priapism was a clotting of the venous plexuses inside the penis.
I went to see this patient who told me an interesting story. The patient was a prosperous business man with gold rings on his fingers, a gold chain round his neck and a gold wrist-watch. A picture of avarice. A friend of his had told him about the drug Viagra and procured him six tablets on the 'black market'. He was told to take one tablet before the anticipated sexual encounter. He took one tablet at 4pm. Because there was a delay in reaching home he took another tablet at 7pm, at his home. Then the wife wanted to go shopping and there was a further delay of two hours. He took another tablet after the shopping. The penis was now well and truly rigid. He had sex with his wife and in spite of all his effforts the penis would not shrink. The wife got desperate and 'slapped the penis' to no avail. That was the time they came to consult the doctor.
The treatment for Priapism in the late 1990s was to puncture the penis with a large bore needle and flush out the clots with saline. Unfortunately quite a few of these cases end up with impotence as a long term side effect.
Philip G V
I went to see this patient who told me an interesting story. The patient was a prosperous business man with gold rings on his fingers, a gold chain round his neck and a gold wrist-watch. A picture of avarice. A friend of his had told him about the drug Viagra and procured him six tablets on the 'black market'. He was told to take one tablet before the anticipated sexual encounter. He took one tablet at 4pm. Because there was a delay in reaching home he took another tablet at 7pm, at his home. Then the wife wanted to go shopping and there was a further delay of two hours. He took another tablet after the shopping. The penis was now well and truly rigid. He had sex with his wife and in spite of all his effforts the penis would not shrink. The wife got desperate and 'slapped the penis' to no avail. That was the time they came to consult the doctor.
The treatment for Priapism in the late 1990s was to puncture the penis with a large bore needle and flush out the clots with saline. Unfortunately quite a few of these cases end up with impotence as a long term side effect.
Philip G V
