The Ol’ Eel in the Anus Fix Does Not Solve Constipation

This must've eel-y hurt.

There's really no way to say this, so we're just going to let the South China Morning Post sum up this totally bizarre story:

Doctors in southern China have removed a half-meter live eel from the stomach of a middle-aged man who inserted the elongated fish in himself supposedly as a folk remedy for constipation, according to a local newspaper. The patient told doctors in Guangzhou that he had heard word on the street that his condition could be effectively relieved or even cured by a living eel, the Guangzhou Daily reported on Tuesday."

Alrighty, then.

For those of you metrically-impaired people out there, half a meter is about a foot-and-a-half, so, yeah, that's a lot of eel.

Now, even if you're not a doctor, odds are you're smart enough to realize this was a bad idea, kind of like getting lo mein at a place called Silverstein's Szechuan Village. No matter how bad your insurance plan is you shouldn't on't get medical advice via "word on the street."

The eel, which reportedly had a head the size of a ping pong ball, messed up the man's intestines and he experienced the kind of pain we can only imagine one has to endure after being foolish enough to place a living creature up your backside. Doctors say he could've died.

Strangely, placing in an eel in a body cavity is a thing in China -- twice over the last four years, people put one of the creatures inside them for sexual purposes.

All of this just serves as a reminder that the next time you go out for some food popular on the Pacific Rim, you may want to avoid eel because you don't know where it's been.