Here’s the thing nobody asked for but a shocking number of us apparently contribute to: the US government keeps a running tally of emergency room visits involving foreign objects. Buried inside that data is a category that never fails to astonish. Items removed from people’s rectums. Yep, really.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission maintains the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a massive, anonymous database that tracks why Americans show up to the ER. That includes cases where someone arrives sheepish, uncomfortable, and very aware that gravity is not a valid explanation. Every year, doctors log what they find. Every year, the list gets longer.
Medical journals have been documenting the trend for decades. A study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine estimated nearly 39,000 hospital visits per year related to rectal foreign bodies, with most patients middle-aged and male. More than half involved sex toys. The rest fall into a category best described as “how did this even occur?”
Researchers note that many cases escalate because people try to fix the situation themselves first. Pliers, tweezers, coat hangers, and other tools frequently appear in follow-up imaging, which explains why doctors beg patients to stop improvising.
So what exactly made it into the official records last year? Here’s a rearranged selection of items doctors reported removing, pulled from government data and emergency medicine case studies.
Some of the worst items found in People’s butts
- A full shampoo bottle, listed twice, once blamed on boredom
- A baseball, documented with the explanation “to see what it felt like”
- A corn cob holder
- A turkey baster
- A wine stopper
- A plastic cleanser bottle filled with liquid
- Eyeglasses
- A rock
- Two pencils
- A vape pen
- A flashlight
- A battery-powered light
- A film canister
- A rectangular travel toothbrush
- A dog chew toy
- Uncooked pasta
- An egg
- Marbles
- A sandal
- A doorknob
- Beard clippers wrapped in plastic, cited as constipation relief
- A light bulb, inserted glass-side first
- A plastic coat hanger, altered so the person could drive to the ER
- A corn-cob style pipe
- A thermos, discovered during a police body scan
Emergency physician Kenji Oyasu, who works in Chicago, summed up the situation in a viral TikTok when asked about the strangest object he’d ever removed. It was a full-size Yankee Candle. “The desktop jar,” he said. “The whole thing.” He explained that suction turns removal into a medical problem, not a pulling contest.
Doctors stress that these cases aren’t common, but they’re common enough to keep appearing in peer-reviewed journals. They also tend to get worse the longer someone waits.
This isn’t about shaming people. It’s a heads-up that, if you decide to stick something questionable where the “sun don’t shine,” the government will write it down for the world to see.
The post The 25 Worst Items Pulled From People’s Butts in 2025, According to the US Government appeared first on VICE.
