An Irish medical journal has warned the public of the dangers of medical experimentation after a man admitted injecting himself with his own semen to treat back pain.

The case, detailed in this month’s Irish Medical Journal, involved a 33-year-old man who had presented to doctors complaining of severe, sudden onset lower back pain for days after lifting a heavy steel object.

While the man had a history of chronic low back pain, a further examination revealed a red rash on his right upper arm - and the patient subsequently admitted he had been injecting himself with his own semen for a year and a half.

“The patient disclosed that he had intravenously injected his own semen as an innovative method to treat back pain,” the case study noted.

“He had devised this 'cure' independent of any medical advice. Upon further interrogation of this alternative therapy, he revealed he had injected one monthly 'dose' of semen for 18 consecutive months using a hypodermic needle which had been purchased online.

“Upon this occasion the patient had injected three 'doses' of semen intra-vascularly and intra-muscularly,” it said.

Doctors found that the semen had leaked into the soft tissue in the man’s arm.

“This patient’s back pain improved over the course of his inpatient stay and he opted to discharge himself without availing of an incision and drainage of the local collection,” the authors noted.

The Dublin-based authors say the case is “the first ever described case of intravascular semen injection and associated abscess in the medical literature” and warn the case “demonstrates the risks involved with medical experimentation prior to extensive clinical research”.