From bryan@anus.org Tue Oct 11 18:56:59 2005 Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:04:32 -0700 (PDT) From: The Hurdy Gurdy Man To: Tarak Xformer Subject: Re: Possible toxic hazards of J-Lube? On Sat, 25 Jun 2005, Tarak Xformer wrote: > While J-Lube looks interesting, I notice on the container it says > "getting this into the peritoneal cavity may cause illness or death". > So, perfectly safe, except of course it can kill you. Er, what? I have six bottles of J-Lube up on my shelf and none of them carry the warning you mention... perhaps it was added recently, especially considering the publication date of the document you cite. When did you obtain the bottles in question? > I've been doing some research and I've found an article about it that > shows it's a bad idea for it to get into the bloodstream, and can > cause total kidney failure: > > Systemic Effects of a Polyethylene Polymer-Based Obstetrical Lubricant > in the Peritoneal Cavity of the Horse > http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/AAEP/2004/Frazer/chapter.asp?LA=1#top To be more technical about it, the document you mention doesn't claim that getting PEP based lubricants into your bloodstream is the problem. It claims that infiltration into the peritoneal cavity is the problem, although I suppose one can safely say by extension the bloodstream should be off limits as well. Renal failure caused by the presence of a long chain polymer doesn't seem a particularly earth shattering discovery, honestly. It seems like it would be the biological equivalent to throwing a bucket of hair down the drain in the tub and seeing how long it took before it clogged up the entire system. > So I dunno if I'd trust this stuff as an "internal lubricant". As the > article says, unseen internal lacerations can allow it to leak into > the body cavity and rapidly absorb into the bloodstream, leading to > kidney failure, urinating blood, and death within a few hours. This > doesn't sound like "completely safe" to me. You're leaving out a few critical details of the study in your statement. The study investigated the effects of peritoneal cavity infiltration by way of the uterus as might be seen in a case of dystocia. The infiltration is assumed to result from a laceration sufficient enough to allow the PEP solution to pass through the uterine wall into the peritoneal cavity, resulting from either the surgeon wrangling around in there or as a result of a cesarean section. Furthermore, the study lists the volume of PEP solution tested to be at a ratio of 2 milliliters per kilogram, which would amount to about a half a cup (4 ounces) in an average human. That's a far cry from the normal amounts to which a person's openings are exposed during sexual activity, and no matter how kinky you are, chances are you aren't into any sort of activity that involves flooding the peritoneal cavity with lubricant. Granted, if you are female, there is an entry route into the peritoneal cavity by way of the fallopian tubes. And as such, there is a concern of infiltration via that route, but again you would first need to fill a person's uterus with the liquid (which is going to be pretty tough, since the cervix doesn't just allow fluid to go rushing past it in most cases) and that liquid would then need to push its way up the fallopian tubes. This paper doesn't seem concerned with that as a possibility, however, as the method of infiltration is listed as "laceration" and nothing else. I suppose the next route of entry would be through the rectum/large intestine, as it does snake its way through the peritoneal cavity. But again, any sort of infiltration from the intestines would require some pretty severe trauma that would carry serious health implications even without the presence of lubricant. Fecal infiltration into the peritoneal cavity is a dangerous problem as well, which would very likely occur in such a situation, not to mention all the internal bleeding that would go along with all of this. The thing to remember here is that they're not talking about little tiny lacerations in that document. They are talking about significantly larger wounds, the sort of thing that would be caused inside a mare due to poking from the large bony legs of a foal or any of the sizeable medical equipment used to assist in a severe case of dystocia or to perform a fetotomy. These aren't the small little tears one would encounter during normal (or even abnormal) bouts of sexual contact. I sincerely doubt there is much of a risk of a PEP solution entering the bloodstream in a significant enough quantity to cause illness or death due to a surface injury of the skin, be it internal or external. If that were the case, the material would clearly be too toxic to use routinely for obstetrical examinations. The uterine wall is quite thick; an opening deep enough to allow fluid to pass from the inside of the uterus into the peritoneal cavity wouldn't be a simple little scratch or tear. The study I would like to see is the one they mention at the end, about inhalation hazards with the unmixed lubricant powder. I doubt the risk is particularly severe, since the sinuses and lungs can do a remarkable job shedding things that cannot be metabolized or handled in an easy manner. I did catch a lungful of the stuff once, and while it was incredibly unpleasant (lots of coughing, hacking, and sneezing) it didn't carry any other effects along with it. Still, inhaling powder of any kind is always a bad idea and should be avoided. If there were serious effects, it would imply that Jorgensen Laboratories lied on the MSDS, which isn't a good thing for the longevity of their business. I do appreciate you sending this link to me, and if I ever get around to updating my pages (which I haven't done in about four years) I'll include it there. But I don't know if I'd be terribly worried about the conditions described in the document as something you might reasonably encounter when using J-Lube for a sexual purpose (or even for its intended purpose). If you are going to be worried about that, then you might as well worry about using other lubricants as well. After all, in the introduction there is mention about the lacking suitability of other lubricants in a condition such as this. They mention the usage of carboxymethylcellulose as a lubricating agent, and warn of the presence of propylene glycol in commercial preparations of it. Propylene glycol is present in a great many of the sexual lubricants on the market. Additionaly, they warn about the presence of antiseptic compounds in the lubricants. Even the venerable KY Jelly, something everyone would consider "safe," contains chlorhexidine gluconate, a chemical used as a sanitizing agent in surgical hand washes. So there are risks with everything out there. It's mostly a question of how you use it. If you slap a little on your wang before you go to town or even shoot a little bit up your butt before sitting on something longer than it is wide, it seems incredibly unlikely that you are generating any sort of risk for yourself at all. But if you pump enough of it up yourself to induce a rupture of an internal organ or inject a half a cup of it straight into your abdomen, well, at that point you've got some other issues going on that need addressing moreso than your choice of lubricants. Still, it makes for good reading and I'm going to have to keep tabs on it to hear if any other horrible discoveries are made about its toxicity. Until then, I'll worry more about other things in this world that seem more immediately lethal than that.