No maybes about it... I am now completely traumatized and women need to understand how this changes the seat up or seat down etiquette dynamics and convincingly makes the case for them:
Ouch: Boys know that toilet seats are an occupational hazard of potty training, but a new study suggests the number of genital injuries caused by falling toilet toppers is growing.
Researchers found the number of emergency room visits for toilet-related injuries to the penis, while
still rare, increased by about 100 visits each year between 2002 and 2010.
Usually, the injuries happen when boys are learning how to urinate into the toilet while standing up and the seat falls unexpectedly - although a few adults did get snagged by the seat, too.
"It's a toddler basically potty training who doesn't have the most advanced motor skills and they just don't have the reflexes to move fast enough," said Dr. Benjamin Breyer, the study's lead author from the University of California, San Francisco.
Previously, the researchers found that about 16,000 men and women are sent to U.S. emergency rooms (ERs) with genital injuries every year (see Reuters Health story of November 7, 2012 here: http://reut.rs/11KE7mL).
Breyer's team was "pretty surprised" to learn that one in 30 genitourinary injuries showing up to the ER involved toilets.
"To us, that was striking. That was unexpected. You think of the bathroom as a safe place," he said.
Using a national database of injuries caused by household products that were treated by U.S. ERs between 2002 and 2010, the researchers found 13,175 genital injuries related to the toilet or toilet seat.
About 68 percent were so-called crush injuries, which is when the penis gets trapped between the seat and the bowl. Of those, about 97 percent were in children seven years old and younger. Only five adults were caught by falling lids.
The researchers write in the journal BJU International that while these injuries are rare, the number of "crush injuries" increased by 100 ER visits every year, with 1,707 ER visits reported in 2010.
"This data can be the tip of the iceberg, because there could be kids who are hurt whose parents don't bring them to the ER. So this could be an underestimation of how often this is going on," Breyer said.
Fortunately, it doesn't look like falling toilet seats lead to too much physical damage, but there may be some lingering mental trauma.
"The vast majority of these injuries were treated in the ER and then sent home… My sense is that it's just a very traumatic and unpleasant experience to go through, but it would be important to know that there is no damage that happens to the penis or patient," Breyer said.
still rare, increased by about 100 visits each year between 2002 and 2010.Oh really Dr. Breyer? Care to demonstrate this for us kind sir? Then shut up.
Clearly what we need is toilet seat control. We need the government to step in and legislate. Now is the time to reduce toilet seat violence. It's the responsible thing to do. And I know informed men will join all women in agreeing.
For all male children... and very short male adults, it's time to put the seat up or seat down debate behind us (so to speak).
Who's with me?
