He endured the pain for an entire day before deciding to go to the hospital.
On July 20, 2021, a man in Xinghua, in China’s Jiangsu province, inserted a live 20-centimeter eel into his anus. He was seeking relief from constipation and was following a supposed folk remedy according to which the animal would help intestinal transit.
The eel did not stay where he expected it to. It traveled through the rectum, reached the colon, bit him, perforated it, and ended up inside the abdominal cavity. Even so, the man did not seek help immediately: he was so embarrassed to tell anyone what he had done that he endured the discomfort for an entire day.
When he finally arrived at the hospital, surgeons operated on him. The doctor later explained that the patient could have died: bacteria from the large intestine, when they reach the abdomen, can cause hemolysis. The most unsettling detail came in the operating room, because the eel was still alive when it was removed.
The man survived and, according to reports, recovered without complications. This is not the only case: in 2020, another man in Guangdong did the same thing with an eel about 40 cm long and ended up with a serious infection.
There is no medical evidence to support these practices, and embarrassment should never delay a visit to the doctor.