KOLKATA: A 55-year-old Kolkata businessman found out what it would perhaps be like to have an overdose of Viagra . The father of two, ended up with a prolonged erection that lasted for — hold your breath — a full 21 days.

And the exasperated gentleman, who found the situation too hot to handle, had not consumed the magic pill. His predicament resulted from a neurological disorder. It took an emergency surgery to relieve him but the man might have lost his ability to resume sexual activity, said doctors at the Wockhardt Hospitals.

The man had been suffering from a problem called priapism — triggered by a peripheral nervous system disorder.

While for normal individuals, penile erection subsides once sexual excitement has ceased, victims of priapism fail to return to a normal state. Prolonged erection usually leads to a permanent damage to the penis and could even cause death. It has to be treated within six hours, but doctors in this case managed to save his life.

"It was too late by the time he sought treatment," said Avishek Mukherjee, urosurgeon at Wockhardt.

Priapism prevents blood from draining out of the penis. There are two penile cylinders (corpora and cavernosa) inside which blood accumulates and that leads to a stiffening of the organ. During erection, the blood flow stops. So, if erection persists for more than an hour, the supply to penis is reduced, which can damage the organ. If the supply remains cut off for a long time, the penis can even be gangrenous.

To treat the disorder, blood needs to be drained out to allow fresh blood to flow in. For this, a passage or a shunt is created. The tip of the penis, called glans pens, has an outlet for the blood to be drained out. "We created a passage between corpora and cavernosa by perforating the walls separating the cylinders. It drained the choked blood out and relieved him," explained Mukherjee.