Anecdotal stories have emerged from males who say their penis has decreased in measurement after having COVID—but it surely's unsure how widespread it's.

The subject was highlighted this week within the How To Do It sexual recommendation podcast by Slate, wherein a person received in touch to say that he had misplaced "about an inch and a half" of size from his penis after catching COVID.

He added: "It is apparently as a consequence of vascular injury, and my docs appear to suppose it is probably everlasting."

It isn't the one such report. A research revealed in The Lancet medical journal final yr checked out over 3,700 individuals with confirmed or suspected long-term COVID with sickness lasting over 28 days. It recognized greater than 200 potential signs from a number of totally different areas of the physique.

Amongst them have been stories of "lower in measurement of testicles/penis," although these have been reported in a small minority of respondents—lower than 10 %.

Charles Welliver, a males's well being specialist and urologist at Albany Medical Faculty, mentioned on the How To Do It podcast that COVID has been linked to erectile dysfunction, which itself is linked to a lower in penis measurement.

"In all probability each man that has vital ED… in all probability will get some shrinkage. We see that, notably in guys after they've their prostate out for most cancers and have zero erection for six to 12 weeks. All of them get shrinkage," he mentioned.

Ashley G. Winter, a urologist on the Kaiser Permanente healthcare firm, additionally spoke on the podcast to state that destructive results of COVID on the penis could also be to do with one thing known as endothelial dysfunction—a time period referring to impaired functioning of the liner of blood vessels.

This pertains to the penis and erections as a result of erections are blood movement occasions. Winter mentioned: "You get laborious as a result of an entire bunch of blood strikes into your penis and stays there. When these blood vessels are affected, , then you may get the erectile dysfunction."

A Might 2021 research on COVID and erectile dysfunction revealed in The World Journal of Males's Well being concluded that it had discovered proof of COVID-19 within the human penis lengthy after the preliminary an infection had occurred, and steered that the virus' impact on blood movement within the penis might lead to impaired erectile perform.

Nonetheless, Welliver famous that it's not identified precisely how widespread the problem is because the complete variety of males with COVID is unsure as a consequence of asymptomatic instances.

Conversely, there was a report in 2020 of a person who skilled a long-lasting erection for hours as a consequence of a blood clot linked to COVID.

Man covering genitals
A inventory picture reveals a person with each palms over his crotch. Some urologists have linked COVID to erectile points.Staras/Getty