According to a frequently repeated old saw, you should be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.
Such was the case for 45-year-old Croatian stylist Neven Ciganovic who wished so fervently for fame, he had about a dozen cosmetic plastic surgeries – including three nose jobs — in his quest for stardom and global recognition.
But a 13th surgery – a cosmetic and functional rhinoplasty – became his undoing, while he was being filmed by a British documentary crew no less.
Ciganovic reacted badly – and strangely — to the to the anesthetic propofol used in nose jobs.
Propofol is the same anesthetic that so fascinated and finally extinguished the life of singer Michael Jackson (who also knew a lot about nose jobs) and who used the drug improperly, referring to the drug as “his milk” that enhance his sleep.
However, Ciganovic did not die, although he may have well wished to shuffle off his mortal coil at some point due to pain.
Local medicos think the propofol brought on a painfully agonizing case of a strange condition known as priapism, which, at a minimum, results in a four hour or longer erection, unrelated to sexual desire.
Other cases have involved anesthetic-caused priapism, but exactly how it works is poorly understood by doctors and scientists.
According to WebMD, priapism can also be caused by blood trapped in the male sexual organ.
The conditional may also affect men who have suffered with:
- Sickle-cell disease; about 42 percent of sufferers will develop priapism.
- Leukemia
- Malaria
- Depression drugs
- Mental illness drugs
- Erectile dysfunction pills or shots
- Black widow spider bites and scorpion stings
Other common causes include injuries to the spinal cord or genital area.
Common diagnostic tests for priapism include:
- Blood tests
- An imaging test known as a Doppler ultrasound; it shows how blood is flowing in the penis.
- A special X-ray known as an arteriogram to detect a dye the doctor injects into an artery.
The last word on Ciganovic: he recovered in a Serbian hospital in Belgrade, but bemoaned his doctors’ ban on any after surgery pain-killers.
