A Reddit user known as Foomanshu11 suffered a chemical burn to his scrotum after wearing underwear marked with undissolved laundry detergent pod residue.
The incident occurred following a week-long family vacation at a tiny house by a lake, where the man noticed dried detergent deposits on his clothes before embarking on a four-hour drive home.
His wife had washed all of their clothes using laundry detergent capsules prior to their departure. While selecting underwear the following morning, the man saw a dry residue resembling plastic on the inside of his underpants. After picking off several large pieces, he recalled that laundry capsules occasionally fail to dissolve completely, but he decided that wearing clean clothes was the priority.
Four hours into the drive, his groin began to itch, though he paid little attention to the discomfort. Upon arriving home and stepping out of his vehicle, he experienced severe pain, describing the feeling as though he had been sprayed with sulfuric acid.
Reddit is an online discussion platform where users regularly share personal stories, community discussions, and everyday experiences. Laundry detergent capsules contain concentrated cleaning formulas that usually dissolve in water, but incomplete dissolving can leave concentrated alkaline chemical residues on clothing fibers.
Detergent residue and chemical burn reaction
While rushing to wash the residue off his skin, the man realized he was dealing with an alkaline chemical burn, drawing a comparison to the lye chemical burn scene from the movie Fight Club. Rinsing provided minor relief from the burning sensation.
Three days after the drive, the skin on his scrotum began to peel off. He noted that each time the skin peeled, it highlighted the mistake he had made by choosing to wear the contaminated underwear that morning.
Fight Club is a feature film directed by David Fincher in which a character suffers an alkaline chemical burn on his hand caused by wet lye.
Earlier reported medical incident
The story was reported by Oleg Davydov, an editor for the internet and media department. The report also cited a previous medical incident where another man ignored a tingling sensation in his scrotum and later traveled to an emergency department suffering from massive blood loss, waiting several hours for medical assistance in the hospital.
