Every year, thousands of people end up in emergency rooms across the United States for a rather uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing reason — we keep getting things stuck in our rectum. Whether it’s out of curiosity, an accident, or for sexual experimentation, the number of these incidents is surprising.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission tracks emergency room visits in a database, which includes anonymous reports of items that patients have inserted into their rectums. While the names are confidential, the items certainly aren’t. A recent review of the 2024 data has highlighted some of the most unexpected and bizarre cases.
In addition to common items like sex toys — including one measuring 24 inches long — people have been treated for having the following items stuck in their rectum:
- Nails
- Screws
- Baseball (“to see what it felt like”)
- Uncooked pasta
- Egg
- Dog chew toy
- Dryer sheet
- Sandal
- Doorknob
- Marbles
- Eyeglasses
- Rock
- Beard clippers wrapped in plastic (“was feeling constipated for two days”)
- Turkey baster
- Plastic cleanser bottle full of liquid
- Shampoo bottle (“slipped in the shower”)
- Shampoo bottle (“was bored”)
- Lubricant bottle
- Enema bottle
- Aerosol can
- Dental pick
- Wine stopper
- Corn cob holder
- Highlighter
- Invisible marker
- Two pencils
- Magic wand toy
- 7-inch dildo and pliers (used in an attempt to remove the dildo)
- Broken piece of butt plug and tweezers (used in an attempt to remove the plug)
- Film canister
- Battery-powered light
- Flashlight
- Plastic coat hanger (modified so they could still drive to the ER)
- Penny
- Light bulb, glass side first (“suction effect” reportedly pulled it in)
- Vape pen
- Corncob-style pipe
- Rubber gasket
- Piece of nose hair trimmer
- Rectangular travel toothbrush
- Baton
- Hair tie
Some cases stood out for their sheer scale or strangeness. A doctor recounted removing an entire desktop-sized Yankee Candle — the kind scented like pumpkin spice — from a man’s rectum. In another case, an Iranian man needed surgery after a deodorant canister he had inserted traveled deep into his digestive tract. And a Florida man was found to have a thermos lodged inside him after being scanned during a drug arrest.
Confusingly, some people weren’t even sure if they still had something stuck in their rectum or couldn’t remember inserting anything at all.
From 2012 to 2021, the American Journal of Emergency Medicine reported an average of 38,948 annual ER visits for rectal foreign objects. Most of the patients were men (78%), with an average age of 43. Around 40% needed hospital admission. Interestingly, over half of these incidents — 55.4% — involved sex toys.
Though not the most common ER issue, the trend is noticeable — and probably preventable.