yes, penis frostbite is possible

while you might think that only exposed body parts are at risk in frigid temperatures, areas covered by clothes and gloves can be affected too — including the penis.

by maija kappler

published jan 09, 2023

4 minute read

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4 minute read

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prince harry said he got frostbite of the penis. is that possible?

prince harry is hardly the only person to experience penis frostbite. (photo by chris jackson/getty images)

there are many bombshell revelations in prince harry’s upcoming memoir “spare.” and some of them are eyebrow-raising, even for people who aren’t major royal-watchers — for instance, the prince’s reference to getting frostbite on his penis during a trip to the arctic. according to page six, which claims to have received an early copy of the book before its release next week, prince harry goes into detail about the aftermath of a 200-mile expedition he took to the arctic in march 2011 as a fundraiser for walking with the wounded, a british charity that supports injured veterans.

while the trip was a success for the charity, the frigid temperatures lead to prince harry experiencing frostbite on his cheeks and ears — but that wasn’t all.

“upon arriving home i’d been horrified to discover that my nether regions were frostnipped,” he wrote, according to the outlet. he told his father an abbreviated version of what he was dealing with, leaving out the awkward parts. “pa was very interested, and sympathetic about the discomfort of my frost nipped ears and cheeks,” he wrote. but the rest of it soon became hard to ignore: “while the ears and cheeks were already healing, the todger wasn’t.”

he attempted to deal with it using elizabeth arden cream, but unsurprisingly, that didn’t help with frostbite. he was still dealing with a painful groin in april of that year, when he attended his older brother william’s wedding to kate middleton, he added. following the wedding, he saw a doctor.

‘distal extremities go first’

frostbite occurs when the skin and the tissue underneath it are frozen. the body will automatically respond to cold with a process called vasoconstriction, the conversation explains. the blood vessels in the area that’s cold will narrow to prevent blood from flowing to that area, so that it doesn’t bring down the temperature of the viral organs, destroy the skin tissue, or start ice crystals from forming in the blood.

frostbite will often starts with a prickling feeling, according to the mayo clinic, followed by numbness and skin that appears hard or waxy. once the area starts to re-warm, pain will often set in, sometimes accompanied by blisters. the skin will likely also change colour: first to red, then to white. in cases of deep frostbite, the skin can turn black.

it’s most common in extremities that are directly exposed to the air and wind: ears, fingers, toes, chin and cheeks are the parts of the body that most often get frostbitten. but areas covered by clothing and gloves can get frostbitten, too.

while penis frostbite is rare, it can occur in extreme temperatures, urologist dr. seth cohen told vice news last year. “distal extremities go first, like fingers and toes, and of course the penis is a distal extremity,” he explained. distal extremities are “end organs,” he said, meaning that they can become constricted by only one blocked artery. “if that specific flow of blood gets blocked, or frozen, or constricted for any reason, that organ starts to lose oxygenated blood,” he said. “that’s what frostbite is.”

the extreme pain occurs because the nerve endings have been “traumatized,” cohen explained. after struggling to get oxygenated blood in the cold, once a person starts to warm up, that blood flow returns quickly.

“it’s the same as anyone who’s ever experienced near-freezing temperatures in their fingers and toes. when you start to warm it back up, it feels pretty awful. so you can only imagine what that must feel like in the penis.”

and the nerve fibres of any area that’s been frostbitten become hypersensitive, the conversation explains, to protect the tissue from further damage. and the flow of blood that’s a normal temperature feels hotter than it normally would, which also causes some pain.

in the worst-case scenario, a penis that was significantly damaged by frostbite might have skin underneath that would start to slough off, cohen told vice. the spongy tissue beneath it could also be damaged, and potentially lead to a loss of skin on the penis — but reproductive health would likely not be impacted unless the testicles were also damaged.

“god never created the penis and testicles to have these injuries,” he told the outlet. “but the penis can take a beating and heal.”

olympic skiier: frozen penis lead to ‘unbearable’ pain

prince harry is hardly the only person to experience a frozen “todger,” or even to talk about it publicly. in early 2022, during the winter olympics in beijing, finnish skiier remi lindholm hinted to reporters that he dealt with “unbearable” pain in his penis after completing a 50 km cross country ski race.

“you can guess which body part was a little bit frozen when i finished,” lindholm said after the race. “it was one of the worst competitions i’ve been in. it was just about battling through.” it started as numbness, but pain set in once he got a little warmer. “when the body parts started to warm up after the finish, the pain was unbearable.”

he also told cnn that he had experienced the same thing during a cross-country ski race in ruka, finland, the previous year.

the pain and potential damage of a frozen penis may be the reason that some arctic mammals, including polar bears, have a baculum, or a penis bone. “while the exact function of this bone is still unclear, it potentially reduces some of the reliance on blood flow to maintain an erection, which is helpful in colder climates,” the conversation says.

maija kappler is a reporter and editor at healthing.

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