BIRMINGHAM, AL – A recent retrospective review of Birmingham, Alabama confirms that 90% of rectal foreign bodies are idiopathic. Colorectal surgeon Joshua P Dengle has spent the better part of the last decade removing this and that from rectums. During this time, he’s noted a disturbing trend: most patients have literally no idea how the light bulb, broom handle, lawn gnome, or otherwise ended up stuffed in their rectums. He thus decided to perform a retrospective chart review, which was almost completely confirmatory of his hunch.
9 out of 10 people requiring rectal foreign body retrieval were completely in the dark about where in the world these foreign bodies came from. The other 10% mostly slipped and fell (the study investigators are still not sure how this explains the foreign body but accepted it as an answer regardless).
Dr. Dengle plans a follow up study to chase yet another well-founded hunch. He believes that the majority of these patients with idiopathic foreign bodies also have no idea why they present to Emergency Departments in Birmingham.
“I have a well founded fear that Alabama has been stricken by a new infectious disease, probably from Haiti, that not only 3D prints random everyday objects in people’s rectums but also causes a temporary dissociative state that ultimately drives them to Emergency Departments,” stated Dr. Dengle. We, at ThePannus, will keep the world informed as this Public Health threat unfolds.
