Mar
22
2021
It took me from Monday to Wednedsay to finally get from 3mm to 4mm with multiple sessions per day trying to get to the 4mm ear taper fully inserted. As I was doing so, I did some math.
What needs to grow is the circular phimotic ring. Because it is a circle, for each milimiter of diameter change, my body needs to generate 3.14 mm of new skin. However it does not need to generate 3.14mm in the whole body, it needs to do so in a very specific place, so we need to think about genering those new cells in between the existing ones in that phimotic ring. For that reason I need to think about the percentage of growth each step involves. Ends up after some calculations that:
- To go from the last step (2.5mm to 3mm), my body needs to grow 20% new cells, a feat that is impossible in a single session.
- To go from 3mm to 4mm is even worst with 33% growth! This is a lot, no wonder it took 3 days to get there and with lots of efforts
In the whole set, the step from 3 to 4mm is the biggest one, it then reduces in percentage of groth at each step but then I noticed after 6mm it goes to 2mm per step! This brings back up the percentage of growth to 33% in one step, that transition will be as hard as the one from 3mm to 4mm as it's the exact same ratio. I might need to find something with smaller size differences to progress more smoothly.
On thurday afternoon I had blood in my urine. I was not sure at this point if it was another infection or if I went too strong in the previous stretching sessions. My foreskin was certainly sore and I had some pain. But I guess I got used to some pain with all that stretching and my hurried brain was ignoring my body signals a little bit. At any rate, to be sure I don't get into a major urinary tract infection again (I don't wish this to anyone), I went to the hospital emergency service.
There was about 20 persons in the waiting room. The triage nurse saw me rather quickly, asked why I was there. I mentioned the history of repeated urinary tract infections, I did not go into the details of the phimosis with her, I though that would be a detail for the doctor, she is there mainly for triage and to monitor patients condition in the waiting room. It's a small town and I don't want the whole town knowing about this situation when I cross them at the grocery and such. She also took my vital signs and my pulse was very high, I don't remember the exact number but a bit over 100. I told her I was under a lot of stress and I also have a bit of fear about everything medical, that it probably plays into that high pulse. She said that usually for such situations, they would book me an appointment in a clinic the following morning, but because of my pulse, they want me to see a doctor there. She gave me a recipient to take an urine sample, I went to the bathroom to fill it up.
At this stage I am in the public bathroom and wondering if I should put back my 4mm or 3mm taper (that I have in my pockets). In the past before I had steroid cream, it was usually about this far in the process that I would get into inflamation issues and abandon. But I also know that if I don't do it and stay in that waiting room multiple hours I may loose all of last week progress (it's late evening, there is only one or two doctors for 20 patients and there are also ambulances showing up). I decided to go for safety and not put it in, also I don't have any sort of lubricant with me and when I get called, I would have to deal with explaining this with a different doctor that might not be agreeing on this treatment, etc.
I got a ticket with a number from the triage nurse. Then there is a board with red, yellow and green rows having your number and your current position if nothing changes. But of course this is an emergency room and things change quickly. I went from 20 up to 12, then back down to 20 and then more ambulances and worst cases than me showed up and I was 24th. So it took 5 hours by now to go from 20th to 24th. Great I'll be here all night, I did not eat and really need some sleep too.
I went to knock on the nurse office door and told her I might as well just go to a clinic in the morning at this stage. She said with my current heartrate she could not recommend that to me and if I left it was on me and I shold sign a refusal of treatment. Well, that's not fun, although I don't really care about that paper, it's mainly for their protection to prove they did not recommend that I leave and it was all on me if something happens. She was nice though, she saw I was not a crazy person just complaining, it's pretty reasonable that I won't see a doctor anyway in the next multiple hours, so she took my cellphone number and said she would call me when I am about 5th on that board. I thanked her a lot, went home to eat something and went for some sleep with my cellphone on the night table ready to go back. Just before going to sleep I tried to put back the 3mm taper to not loose too much progress but it would not even begin to go it even with lubricant. I went down to the 2mm also without luck and the 1.6mm would not fit in completelly or even hold. I was really tired, so put nothing back. I guess I just loss 100% of my progress and will have to start over after this is resolved. I just don't want it to get to the point of blocking the passage of urine, so I went back to my trusty unfolded paperclip for sleeping.
She called me 30 minutes before midnight and said, I was now 18th but she is finishing her shift in 30 minutes and won't be able to call me. This was a personal service from her and not an hospital policy. So I had to go back and wait again.
I got back in the waiting room and saw many of the same faces. Every couple of hours, the triage nurse checks back on each patient to see if there is any evolution in their condition during the wait. She took my vitals again and my pulse was now under 100. So I asked her if now she could just redirect my file to a clinic. She hesitated a bit and looked at some policy and at that board and agreed to do it. So I went back home to have some more sleep with an appointment the next morning. I was still tired a lot, did not even try to get a larger taper and just went for the paperclip again (which I am estimating at 1mm).
Friday morning I showed up for my appointment at the clinic. The receptionist had my file and said the hospital forgot to send my urine test results to them and she would have to send new samples. So she gave me another container and asked if I knew the procedure. Yes I unfortunatelly know too much how to do it. I did my thing and gave her the container then had to wait a little bit for the doctor. The doctor called me into her office (I was happy, another female doctor, I find them more gentle). So I explain to her that I had these infections in the past. I explained the treatment I was doing and gave her the name of my family doctor. She said they studied together and that she was very good and very nice. She agreed with the treatment but was not aware of the details. I told her that it was probably not something they studied a lot as there is not much serious scientific studies about forskin stretching to cure phimosis in adults. I also told her I went recently to have a sonography but did not get my results yet and that I was a bit worried about what I saw and maybe if she could see it it would help her out in the diagnosis here unless it was meant only for my family doctor eyes. She went to her computer and found the test, and said everything looked about normal, nothing obviously wrong was visible. She wanted to see my penis to rule out and obviously visible issue. I explained to her that I had some fear of doctors and to just tell me what she does before doing it and I would be fine. She said she only wanted to see the tip of my urthral orifice and did not need to touch anything. I said I did not mind but there was nothing to see yet because the phimosis type I have is a pinhole phimosis in which case you can't see that.
I showed her anyway just to be on the safe side. I asked if maybe because of the treatment I am doing now, if I should add to the steroid cream something else to prevent fungal infections and the likes and she said no. From my reading some people with phimosis also get yeast infections and use something like Canesten. She told me that doctors don't like to prescribe wide range antibiotics too often to not cause resistance to them. She asked me how bad this urinary infection felt compared to the past. I told that that honestly since this morning I am almost fine. Urination is a bit uncomfortable but not super painful and I only feel it at the tip of my forsekin not through the whole urinary system like the last time. Also it looks like I have a decent flow compared to the last time. She said that if I agreed, she would prefer to do a urine culture which takes a bit more time but then she could prescribe a more specific antibiotic instead of a wide range one. She also said that the test would go out today but they would only get the results monday and I would have to live with it over the weekend, but if it get's any worst over the weekend to go back to the hospital emergency service.
I agreed, thanked her and was going out when she called me back. Apparently the receptionist put my urine sample in the fridges which makes it invalid for a culture. I have to produce another sample. I told her I'll try but I pretty much just voided myselft just before we talked, so depending on how much they need, I was not sure if I could right now. She said that it would still not be good. for cultures you have to hold your urine at least 2 hours before the sample. So she would give me the tube for the sample, I would go home and wait at least 2 hours, then do my thing and come back with it right away to send out without refrigeration. So that's what I did.
I then went to the grocery store and bought cranberry juice. I know there are no serious studies about it's usage against urinary infections but I spoke about it with one of the doctors (can't remember which) and his/her opinion on the matter was that at any rate it does not hurt, so go for it, but only buy the unsweetened real stuff, most of what you see is coktail and does not have near enough craberries in it to do anything. If it really really tastes so tart you can't drink it, you have the right stuff. Over the weekend I made several huge glasses of that juice mixed with some sparkling water, diluted this way, it is actually pretty good. I drank a lot, I mean a lot of it the whole weekend.
I got back to my stretching but very slowly and carefuly. I got to 3mm sunday night and with all the drinking was going to the bathroom a lot. Every visit to the bathroom I was feeling my flow increasing and the color of my uring getting paler. With my pinhole phimosis it would take me at least a minute or two to empty my bladder, event last week when I stretchet all the way to 4mm. Now I am only at 3mm but my flow is so great that it only takes me about 30 seconds to get it all out. Obviously I am at a better 3mm than I was last week. I guess the max stretch size is not the only factor, maybe there is something about the size when the foreskin is relaxed and not under stretch that happens only with time. Maybe my urine is just more liquid, it was foamy on my previous urine test which was not the case in this one.
Then Monday came and the doctor from this clinic called me back for the results. Ends up they found absolutelly nothing in the normal test, the culture and even no signs of any sexually transmitted desease. The only things she saw was slightly higher than normal micro-albumine and preteins. I asked hew how that compared to my previous results and she said it actually went down by a lot since the last test, I am just a touch above the normal range and she is not even worried too much about it. But the blood in the urine is not normal and since I refuse to have a camera in there, she can't really do much more.
She kind of triggered me a bit by that comment. I had to fight a bit with that statement, had to explain I am not refusing the camera exam (endoscopy) it's just not physically possible right now to get it in there and I won't have an amputation of part of my sex (circumcision) just to investigate something that might not even show anything wrong. That I won't take that irreversible step for maybe or maybe not finding something with the camera. For all I know it could be just a small tear due to my stretching, the urine test is fine, the sonogram is fine, for all I know that endoscopy would be fine too. My plan is to continue with my stretchings, maybe go a little slower and see how things go. I expect to be at 5-6mm (what I would need for an endoscopy) in a couple of weeks. If I had anything serious to be worried about immediatelly I am sure it would have shown in one of these tests. She agreed and appologized for the phasing, that was not what she meant. I also appologized for being a bit blunt but the statement triggered me a bit.
So in summary, this week I went from 3mm down to almost nothing and back to 3mm. My theory about this week is that I simply went too quick, 3mm per week might be a bit too agressive. I plan to slow down the progress but continue the treatment as planned. I am urinating good and feel good.