Jan
04
2021
I am european and like most europeans, I am not circumcised. I was shoked to learn about the circumcision rates in the USA, but that is another subject. My parents immigrated to Canada when I was 3 years old. In order to receive canadian citizenship we all had to go through a medical exam. The doctor that examined me noticed I was not circumcised and that my foreskin did not retract, so in an incredible move of (let`s call it ignorance) he did a Premeture Forcible Foreskin Retraction. This caused me an incredible pain and psychological damage due to fear. I instantly became very scared of doctors and nurses and adults under control in general. I think my parents where shocked too and we kinda all dismissed the event. I became very protective of the area and I think my parents kinda also never insisted to take a better look in there probably also thinking that it was the right thing to do and that now I was fixed. Maybe it was also just them being scared to scare me further, I don't know and will never know as we never spoke about it. On the physical side of things it caused bleeding and the formation of scar tissues which eventually developed into a pathalogical phimosis.
Like I said on the home page of this site. One can totally live fine with phimosis if it does not cause other related issues. I only learned what phimosis was and that I was different in my teens after seeing other penises in movies and such. I searched the internet about it and in that time, the internet was not what it is today, so the information was scarce. At least I knew the name and what it was. In my case, I had pinhole phimosis which means my forskin only has a very smal hole (like about 1mm) which is just enough to urinate but accompanied by some balooning. It was never really an issue other than it took me longer than the average man to pee and I could not pee standing up because it came out kind of like an erratic spray. I kept this condition to myself (I am good at ignoring the future at this young age).
I had 3 girlfriends in my live and it was not an issue for any of them either. I was very scared the first time I got a girlfriend because I knew I was not "normal". I guess I was scared of rejection and if not maybe about how intercourse would go with this condition. But I guess it was more about me than about them, no other girlfriend after made any big deal of it. Intercourse was not painful and on the upside I did last longer than most man in bed too. It was always hard for me to climax by vaginal intercourse.
I had a bit of pain peeing here and there in the past years but nothing that lasted more than a day or two, and not aweful pain, just a little inconfort. About 3 years ago though I had a more serious event where it was actually an urinary tract infection. I went to the local clinic (remember I am very scared of doctors at this stage even if I am now in my 40`s). The pain was simply bigger than my fear of doctors. The doctor was in a hurry, took an urine sample and a stick and gave me pills, the infectin passed in a few days and I was back to normal. The doctor did not examine me or even ask much questions and I was kind of happy to just get my pills and leave.
At this stage I started looking on the internet about more recent information, maybe there is now some magical non-surgical solution. I found a very nice and complete forum about phimosis stretching. I was super excited. I learned that it can stretch and that there is a steroid cream that actually helps, also coconut oil and all kinds of other tricks. That forum is now unfortunatelly claused (hence whey I started this project), it was very nice to have people to talk to about it and share tricks and worries, etc. Since the cream is a prescription drug I thought I would try just normal stretching using coconut oil. I did it a bit but did not really dedicate much time to it, I remember about doubling the hole (from 1mm to 2mm or so) and it felt better to pee, but that was pretty much it. If I would not stretch for a full day it would just return to 1mm or even get worst than I started with. I repeated this a couple of times and reasoned that unless I really dedicate to this it will not work and I eventually stopped stretching.
Then about a year later, I got another urinary tract infection, this one was even worst and I could actually see blood strips coming out with the urine, given my very tight forskin it even cause some serious blocage. I immediatelly went back to see a doctor remembering the pain of the last time and seeing as this was starting worst. That second doctor actually asked a bit more questions about my past history and sexual pratices, etc. He noted that it is already rare for a man to even get one urinary infection, 2 in 2 years was a bit of a serious thing for a man. He did a prostate exam but never looked at my penis (and I was not going to insist on it, still scared and shy and a bit humiliated to be different). He gave me my prescription for the antibiotics and another prescription to see a urologist to go see in there with a camera. I felt a bit like Fry from Futurama on his medical exam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKjSnyv4YW0 . So after gathering all my courage I fought my shyness and told him my story and my current condition. There was no physical way to get a camera in there even if I wanted without a circumcision and this I know I don`t want! He kinda pushed the urologist paper towards me and told me to check with him. So guess what, I took my pills and never got that appointment because of fear again.
However I though I would try stretching again, obviously this is a problem I will have to eventually handle somehow if it's giving me regular infections. I went back to find that forum and it was gone! Despair! I tried to collect my memories, I remembers something about the phimotic ring and something about it needing to stretch outwards and this could not be done by pulling back on the foreskin if it's too small. You need to get two finger inside and pull outwards. Oviously I am far from being able to put 2 fingers in there so I remembered also reading about using small easy to clean objects like q-tips without their tips or knitting needles. But everything would just be to big for my case. I got paperclips, well a single paperclip, 2 would not fit. Seeing as I could not put any to objects in there to pull them apart to stretch, I figured I'd have to simply use progressivelly growing sizes of a single object until it stretches enough to get 2 objects in there. So with a combination of unfolded paperclips and some shrink tubing I managed to build myself a couple of stretchers of different sizes. I did this with coconut oil again but this time multiple times per day and with a mindset of making it work no matter how much time it took. I got to about 3mm in a couple of weeks but then I hit a limit. No matter what I would do, past 3mm the foreskin would get inflamation causing the hole to become smaller I had to fight it many days to just maintain normal urine flow and the inflamation would make peeing cause some pain. I think I insisted for about 4 weeks before I gave up on this new attempt. I would probably need the cream. But well I am still scared of doctors and since I stopped attempting to stretch everything is back to my "normal" previous condition.
I was living in a big busy city, my girlfriend really wanted me to start seeing a doctor on a regular basic, not only for this but in general, just to do yearly follow-ups and stuff. She put me on the list to get one and I think I never got a call for about 2 years. We moved deep in the woods in march 2020. My parents are divorced and my mother and step-father that I consider just like my own father moved in with us. Life is good we are all very happy, then Covid hits and we are alone for what appears to be forever confined in the woods. I must admit though that I like it, so much tranquility.
Then on January 4th 2021, I get some light pain peeing, I am thinking maybe it's the lake water or some such, just some sort of rash. Then I get some fever too more than once and boom, blood in the uring and it hurts like crazy, this time it hurts from the tip all the way up to the bladder and I really feel like it's a bad one, worst than the previous ones. We are in the Covid peak too, I called to know what the policies where at this moment and because I had fever they redirect me to one specific clinit that will take care of that and do a Covid test at the same time. The Covid test alone scared me enough, I did not like that nose probe! So they get a urine sample, I tell them I had other ones in the past, did not mention the phimosis. The emergency doctor there was really surprised I did not have a regular doctor I see every now and then. I told her I was on a big list but nobody called me up (in my head I am thinking maybe having a regular doctor I see more than once, maybe we get a bit more familiar and I become less scared and can open up and maybe we work a solution out together). So she tells me to call and move myself out of the big city list and she refers me to a collegue that will take me as a regular patient. Since we are in the woods now, the hospitals and clinics are not as full.
In my next post I'll talk a bit more about that new doctor.