Medical Records on Candirus' Attack; Protect Your Genital!

Pixabay

Hi everyone,

Yesterday, while scrolling down a blog, I stumbled upon an article which described a urethral attacking event by a parasite fish which can be found in the Amazon river called the candiru. It just gives me the creeps thinking how awful it would be to have something with a set of sharp spines, anchoring themselves in the inside of our urinary system while drinking any blood yield from the trauma posed. The topic is quite interesting, and I have been spending my holiday scrolling down a few journal sites, trying to find any research paper related to the candiru. This is a weird case so if it has happened in the past, they must have documented it. Unfortunately, after spending hours, I've found nothing than a bunch of blogs' articles which have been written by various bloggers.

---

Even with the lack of supporting evidence, I'm going to write anything that I can still retain from my reading, simply just to share with all of you regarding a parasitic fish which we called as the candiru

---

In the living areas located along the Amazon river, the story about the candiru has been told for more than a hundred years. Obviously, the story has been buttered a little bit to make it either pleasant or worse than it really is so without a proper scientific documentation, there is no way we can access the validity of the story being told. According to a medical doctor named Dr Americo Campos who has been actively treating this type of "ailment" in 1929, the candiru can enter through any of the openings on the body which includes and not limited to the penis, vagina, nose, and even anus. Of course, during that particular time, they have no idea why the incident of candiru attack increases in people who were bathing in the Amazon river.

Oudart and Pierpao - Wikimedia (CC0)

The propensity of a candiru to attack people who were urinating in the river of its natural habitat was known since the 1800s. In 1855, people who were living along the Paraguay River knew better not to urinate while bathing to avoid the danger of being attacked by the parasitic catfish itself (the candiru). Somehow the knowledge of what attracts this particular parasite changed to the first few decades of the 1900s. People were arguing whether blood or urine which has been the key factor in attracting this organism to invade the urethra of a human. I can totally understand the struggle since this creature consumes blood, so why does it attack when we were urinating in the river?

The answer is the nitrogenous substances to which they were attracted to while hunting for their natural prey. They were never intended to attack humans. They usually prey on fish by detecting the chemical that is produced by the gill which contains nitrogenous substances, so with that kind of stimulus, they launched themselves into the gill of a fish, anchoring themselves causing haemorrhage and extract the blood component as food until their host dies of infection, inflammation or even haemorrhage caused by the trauma posed by the spiky spines.

So what about humans? Well, unfortunately, our urines contain nitrogenous compounds which caused the candiru to mistakenly thought it as a signal that there were some fishes nearby. It launched themselves into the urethra of a human, extracting blood like what they did in a fish, only now, they are doomed for even trying. Urinating in the river creates an almost the same condition as when a fish trying to exhale through its gill.

James Martins - Wikimedia (CC BY 3.0)

Back in 1800, the process to extract the candiru out of the genitourinary system or wherever it might be is pretty painful. In 1877, a physician named Castro extracted a candiru out from a urethra belong to a patient. The patient was an explorer and while having a trip to the Amazon river, he felt a pricking pain down to his "thing". After consulting Dr Castro, he consented to a minor surgical procedure which might have been done under local anaesthesia instead of general. How do I know this? According to a paper which is published in the Journal of Wilderness Medicine, the patient screamed to his heart content despite he was given a sufficient amount of local anaesthesia due to his tore mucus membrane caused by the erected spine of the candiru.

In 1891, a physician named Le Cointe helped to treat an Indian woman who was being attacked by a candiru when she was taking a bath in a river somewhere in Bolivia. The candiru, slipped through her vagina while she was urinating and like any others, she tried her best to pull the creature out. Not only she failed accomplishing that, she bleeds profusely due to the fact that the candiru's spine has been anchored and pulling it in an opposite direction caused tearing of her vaginal canal.

The U.S. Army - Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

That's pretty painful (even though I'm a man, I can't imagine what it felt like if I am). When she was brought to Le Cointe, the doctor immediately knew that to eliminate that particular parasite, a special manoeuvre has to be performed. He had to push the candiru in, to disengage the spine from the vaginal wall, rotating it inside (making its head pointing out) and then expelling it from the system. It was a brilliant idea and the woman made a full recovery with fewer complications a few weeks later.

I did tell you previously, there are two different opinions regarding the thing that a candiru was attracted to right? Well, with all of the information and evidence pointed out, it seems clear that a candiru is attracted to urine but in 1929, Dr Americo Campos wrote a paper describing a candiru attack involving a girl who has been menstruating. She went to a river to take a bath and a few minutes after, she was brought due to profuse bleeding and pain originating from her vagina. She denied urinating in the river and after a careful examination, they extracted a candiru from her vaginal canal. If, for argument sakes, what has been told by the girl was, in fact, true, then, a candiru might have an affinity towards blood as well; after all, they did consume blood.

Native's Culture and Treatment

Pixnio

Well, when it comes to treatment, there are various modalities that you can try to avoid being attack by a candiru (if you really want to pee while bathing in a river that bad). In the modern medicine, if I was consulted by a patient who turns out has a candiru inside his junk, I will recommend operating right away. The only way to remove a foreign body out is by cutting. As long as it holds tight to the surrounding muscle by means of its sharp spines, it would be stupid to leave it behind, won't you say?

There are a few papers which have been written by surgeons in the early 1900s describing their surgeries to remove candirus from the natives' urethras. Some people trying to pull it out, especially if the candiru trying to enter a penis, it's hard to make it through due to the long urethra, so a portion of its tail might be exposed when you realised, you are being attacked. Pulling it out is a bad idea, and it's proven throughout the history of mankind. It's either caused more bleeding courtesy of the candiru's bitchin' spines or it can slip further inside making it impossible to not consider surgery as a viable treatment modality.

In 1941, an Indian boy was attacked by the candiru and when it happened, no one knew what to do (not even one of them recommended the boy to be brought to a doctor). They have decided to gamble and treat the boy by using a herb from a fruit that they called the Xagua. Comes tomorrow, the boy was still weak but the candiru has slipped out from his genitourinary tract making it one of the most effective treatment to expel candirus (I won't recommend it though as I don't understand the mechanism it holds).

valter Campanato - Wikipedia (CC BY 3.0 BR)

Despite all of the available treatment, prevention is a better alternative. When I say prevention, I don't mean, cutting off your penis, even though some natives dwelling along the river which has been the natural habitat for a candiru, took that as one of the viable options. In 1829, a paper was published by an author (his name was not stated) describing a native which has been constricting their own penis to reduce the size of the urethral meatus. Some of them covered their genitals with a coconut shell which has a few small holes on it to allow urine to pass through if they need to pee while bathing. I'm not sure why they need to urinate while in the water, why not doing it standing near the river; I doubt the candiru has much swimming power to infiltrate genitals that way.

If you are planning to go to the Amazon river anytime soon, ensure the safety of your manhood (or woman thingy, I don't know) by not urinating somewhere in the Amazon river. I know it's tempting but you will pay the price if you did. Although we can live without genitals, I think inflicting some pains on that part would be the most traumatic experience that you would have in your own life.

Sources

• Would the candiru fish really eat your genitals?
• Candiru – The fish that can swim up your penis?
• Candiru: Amazonian parasitic catfish
• Observations of Animal's Behaviour

---

---

SteemSTEM is a community project with the goal to promote and support Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics on the Steem blockchain. If you wish to support the steemSTEM project you can:

Contribute STEM content using the #steemstem tag | Support steemstem authors | Join our curation trail | Visit our Discord community | Delegate SP to steemstem

Convenient Delegation Links:

50 SP | 100SP | 500SP | 1,000SP | 5,000SP | 10,000SP | 50,000SP