Diagnostic dilemma: A man tried to self-treat his incontinence by gluing his urethra shut

The symptoms: The man visited an outpatient clinic after a week of experiencing extreme discomfort during urination and pain above his pubic bone. His urine stream was weak, and he was unable to empty his bladder.

What happened next: The patient told the doctors that about a month earlier, he had begun to develop incontinence. He self-treated for two weeks by inserting superglue into his urethra.

At first, the superglue seemed to help. But after four days, he began to produce less and less urine and urination became painful. By the time of his clinic visit — two weeks after he stopped applying the superglue — he was barely able to urinate at all and was in constant pain, his doctors wrote in a report of the case .

The diagnosis: During a physical examination, the doctors noted that the man's penis was erect and that they felt a solid foreign body in the penile urethra. They also observed "brittle fragments of superglue" on the opening at the tip of his penis, they wrote in the report.

The doctors attempted to perform a cystoscopy, a procedure in which a tube fitted with a lens enables doctors to look inside the urethra. But the obstruction prevented them from inserting the tube far enough to see anything, and they decided to perform emergency surgery to remove the mass of hardened glue.

The treatment: Surgeons made an 0.8-inch (2 centimeters) incision in the glans, the bulb at the end of the penis. For 15 minutes, they bathed the urethra with 0.8 gallons (3 liters) of saline solution to saturate the glue plug and thus separate it from the walls of the urethra ‪—‬ a feat they eventually accomplished through "certain maneuvers," they wrote.

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

Finally, the glue broke loose. The doctors extracted a rod-shaped solid glue block measuring nearly 4 inches (10 cm) long.