Connecticut man who found it painful to urinate has bullet removed from bladder 18 years after he was shot
A 42-year-old Connecticut man who found it painful to urinate and ejaculate for a year had a bullet removed from his bladder.
The incident was reported by Joanna Marantidis who is based at the Frank H Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in Urology Case Reports. Marantidis revealed that the man had been shot in the bladder in 1990.
At the time, doctors could not remove the bullet because they could not reach it without harming him and used a catheter—a tube which is passed into the bladder—to drain any urine. It had helped him use the toilet for several weeks as he recovered from his injury, and he had no problems for close to two decades.
However, two years ago, he started experiencing shooting pain in the right side of his bladder whenever he used the toilet or ejaculated. The problem persisted for a year before he decided to seek out help, with doctors finding that a bladder stone had grown around the bullet, and caused it to erode through the organ's wall, where it became stuck.
To solve the problem once and for all, they decided to perform a cystolitholapaxy, a medical procedure that involves using a stone-crushing device with lasers or ultrasound waves to break up bladder stones into smaller fragments.
Surgeons used a laser to shave down the bullet—which measured approximately 30x25mm—and break down the outer layer of the stone. However, removing its inner portion proved more problematic, with bullet debris and stone material recovered when the patient next urinated.
Because they realized that the last remaining fragments had sharp edges and would have caused significant damage if it passed through the bladder neck and urethra, they returned him to the operating room for a cystolithotomy—the surgical removal of bladder stones via a lower abdominal incision.
Speaking about the bizarre case, urologist Dr. Rich Viney told the Daily Mail, "This is an unusual case but not unique. When confronted with a foreign object the body will initially wall it off with scar tissue. It will then, slowly propel it towards the nearest external surface to expel it from the body. Normally this is back long the entry route taken by the foreign object."
"In this case, the bullet had passed through the bladder so it is no surprise that it has been expelled back along the tract into the bladder," he added.
