Final post

I’m afraid this may be my final post on this blog.

I’d hoped to find an answer through interacting with other sufferers but very few people have gotten in touch with me, even though I see from the stats that many people have viewed the blog.

I understand why some people are reluctant to get in touc, but if anyone needs advice, or can help me, please get in touch via happybutworried@hotmail.co.uk

My penis is still shrinking, I’m still suffering fro pain, and the medical profession continue to refuse to help.  If anyone can get help, please get in touch.

My current state of mind

Like many people who suffer from atrophy, I’m trying to get on with things as well as I can and not obssess too much about it.

That’s easier said than done when every day sees your penis get that little bit smaller (or in my case, thinner).  I’m also still suffering pain on a daily basis and the really worrying thing is there’s no way of getting either a dignosis or prognosis.

It’s almost impossible to stop my mind from jumping to the worst case scenario, which is that one day my penis will be so small it is useless.  Actually, the worst case scenario is eunuchdom and no matter how many doctors tell me that’s ridiculous, I can’t take their word for it when they can’t tell me why my penis is shrinking.

I’m still trying to do a bit of research but I find, more and more, I’m just finding the same old articles, which seem to be somethign of a dead end anyway.

I have a great family, girlfriend, friends and decent job – that’s what keeps me going.  I know that things could be a helluva lot worse for me, but I still can’t help feeling that I can’;t be fully happy in my life until I get this resolved.  I look down at my penis and think, “how much more of this can it take before there’s nothing of it left?”  The one thing that cheers me is that I thought it wouldn’t see this stage if it kept atrophying.  Here we are, considerably reduced in girth, but here nonetheless.

I’m determined to beat this but I have to confess that, at the moment, I don’t know where to turn next.  Any ifo/articles/research you’ve come across would be most welcome.  Happybutworried@hotmail.co.uk if you don’t want to post on this site.

Those who bothered replying

The following is an email I received from a urologists who I contactedconcerning penile atrophy.  He is from a Greek doctor who I found out about online who had treated a guy with penile necrosis.

Sorry for my late reply, i have read your letter and attached document in detail. To be honest at first i thought that there must be an underlying psycological situation behind all this penis-shrinking problem of yours. There are a couple of things you should know. The actual measurement s of your penis in erect position do not show a consistent and gradual decrease of size. You have to know that the size of the penis can vary greatly, depending on psycological situation, bladder capacity, drug use etc. Personally i would not say that the changes are so dramatic , so u should not be alarmed. There are scarce evidence of penis shrinkage in the literature, most cases refer to men with underlying medical conditions from which you dont seem to suffer. In my case report the poor old man had advanced and neglected penile cancer, in other cases there is a clear history of vascular diseases, or renal insufficiency, again this is not your case. I would suggest that you have your blood testesterone tested, just in case and try to get involved in a relationship. This would pretty much aleviate your feelings and restore your self esteem which seems to be low.
Keep in mind that tehre is NO urologic disorder that results in CONSTANT penile shrinkage in healthy young men. If helpful consult a psycologist, this does not mean that i consider your problem of fantastic nature, however i am positive that you should distract your mind from penile measurement s and stuff!

I hope that i have been of help.

Thanks for replying, but I’m afraid you didn’t help.

Am trying to dig out some more of the emails I’ve received concerning this to post online.

Stick with me on this one…

This might sound a really bizarre question, but do any other sufferers of penile shrinkage who visit here suffer from asthma?  Given the links between steroids and reproductive problems/testicular atrophy I asked my doctor about the risks of using my steroid inhaler.

 

He assured me that there could be no link and the steroid dose in each puff is minute.  However, I recently noticed that the shrinkage seems to be worse at times when I’m using my reliever inhaler more.  I checked out Bricanyl and this is what Wikipedia told me

“Terbutaline (trade names Brethine, Bricanyl, or Brethaire) is a β2-adrenergic receptor agonist, used as a fast-acting bronchodilator “

Previously, I’d drawn attention to a patent application to prevent penile atrophy.  Here’s what the abstract said:

“The present invention is concerned with the use of TXA₂ receptor antagonists for the preparation of pharmaceutical compositions for the prevention of degenerative changes in penile tissue.”

Now, I’ve no idea whether there’s any real science behind this application, and all attempts to contact the inventors have proved fruitless but it does seem strange that agonists and antagonists are both mentioned in info linking a potential pattern (for me at least) with the condition,.

Probably nothing in it but I’m sure every guy who’s ever experinced penile atrophy has thought of bizarre casues at one tim eor another.

Someone else’s story

So far all posts on this blog relate to my experiences of shrinkage.  The following is from a guy who emailed me with permission to tell his story.  Sorry to hear your problems bud, and I’ll give you a full email reply once I get back off holiday mode.  Thanks for taking the time to compose such a detailed note which illustrates exactly the feelings of guys suffering from this condition.  Keep the chin up man.

Hi there, I am a 18 year old male from Canada and is experiencing penis shrinkage. I never knew so many people were bothered by this problem until I found a thread on medhelp.org (so little information about this topic online). Now, the events that led to my penis shrinkage – My story begins when I discovered masturbation at the age of 11 and since then I had masturbated once at day until I was 17 (sometimes twice, sometimes not at all, but mostly once). Over the years I developed a curvature in my penis due to my method of masturbation (lying flat on my belly on a blanket and then rubbing my penis on the blanket).
 
By the time I was 17, it had become increasing difficult for my masturbation to be of any pleasure because it became increasingly hard for the head of my penis to be touching the blanket (am I making any sense?). I was drunk one night and so forcefully bent my penis so that I can pleasure myself as usual. After that, my penis started to loose rigidity and the “dorsal part of my penis head” got stretched so the openings of my penis didn’t match anymore (don’t know if I am explaining this right). However, I could then still achieve an erection (although it got increasingly hard to achieve) and I did not have any signs of shrinkage at the time but my penis was “too flaccid” when not erect (again, am I making any sense?). In addition, my semen began to be not as thick and white as it use to be but instead “replaced” by some short of whitish/clearish liquid that is thinner than regular semen with yellow “tapioca balls” in them. Ejaculating this was also harder as the liquid would come out smoothly but the tapioca balls would have a hard time coming out and to get it all out I would have to push myself to get it out (feeling of them being stuck in there and sometimes I do feel that I didn’t ejaculate everything).
 
My sex drive was also getting lower and I had to resort to watching porn to get hard (before I can just imagine a girl naked and get hard). I didn’t have the courage to tell anyone about it and I convinced myself that I had exhausted myself and that I must stop masturbating and everything will be back to normal. I didn’t entirely stop as I couldn’t resist sometimes and so, did masturbate once in a week or two but the problem was still there – hard to get an erection, lower sex drive, “weird ejaculation”, and a non erect penis that was more flaccid than normal.
 
Now, a few months ago, the area between my penis and belly button started making grumbling noices occasionally (kinda like the sound from an empty stomach) and I can feel it too. Also, my urine began to get really yellow and sometimes kinda milky too (although it is less frequent that I get this kind of urine now). There is also a very unattractive smell coming out of the head of my penis (and the smell is not going away). I have learned in biology class that if you don’t clean your head well (I am not circumcised) you will get this chessy substance that emits a terrible smell but that substance is not present in my penis. There are now veins popping up in my penis that weren’t visable before and my penis has began to loose girth (I’d say at least an inch, perhaps more) and it also lost a little bit of length (less than an inch) when not “erect” (I can only get semi-hard these days through watching porn) but remains a bit over 5 inches when “erect”. But when my penis is not “erect”, it does feel a little harder now. It’s really depressing as I am already a physically small guy (5′5″ or 5′6″) and my penis was already on the smaller side.
 
My life is completely ruined, my performance in school dropped dramatically, I didn’t get into university, I am a lot less sociable than before, I am finding myself to get angry really easily these days, my head hurts thinking of my situation, I cry myself to sleep, and I have lost my self esteem. I have now gotten the courage to go and see a urologist, I had high hopes and I thought I could recover but after reading about how “incompetent” urologists are, my hopes are gone. Life really does suck, I only wanted an average life, get married, and have kids. I just want my penis to be the way it use to be, I don’t want to lose my penis forever. I actually do feel like ending my life sometimes but I don’t know how long I can hang on as the situation just seems to get worse when I thought I’d hit rock bottom. The only thing that is stopping me is that I would devastate my family if I suicide. It’s only a little over a year since the whole penis bending incident but has already sucked the life out of me. I am only 18, I’ve never had sex, now its possible that I may never have it, and that I will never marry or have kids. I understand that there are many people who have it a lot worse then me, sorry if I was being childish. I feel so dumb, afterall it is my fault, I got myself into this mess and it seems like I can’t get out.

Holidays

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks as I’m off on holiday.  When I was away last year the shrinkage/pain I was experiencing was so severe that I honestly thought I would be a eunuch within a year.

Anyway, a year later and I’ve still hanging on.  I’m gonna try and forget about this as much as possible and concentrating on relaxing, rather than obsessing.  You never know – it might even help things.

All the best and feel free to add a comment to any of my posts or to contact me privately on happybutworried@hotmail.co.uk.

I’ll get back to you when I return.

A Catch-22 situation

I’ve said on here several times that my shrinkage seems to be related to masturbation in some way.  That is, despite all accepted medical wisdom, I can’t shake the notion that there is some correlation between what I’m experiencing and the amount of times i’ve had one off the wrist.

Over the years I suppose I’ve been afairly heavy masturbator but I suppose most guys in their teens and twenties are.  I’ve asked numerous doctors if I could have damaged my penis in some way but all say no.  That makes it hard to stop.  In particular, I think I may have damaged my penile tissue by trying to masturbate too early.

I encountered a fairly late puberty and couldn’t ejaculate until I was 15.  Despite that, I was fdesperate to be like all my peers and would often try to wank before I was physically able to enjoy it.  My penis would often swell up afterwards and I’m terrified I damaged the tissue in some way.  Doctors seem dismissive when I tell them this though.  I’d love to hear from anyone who experienced something similar.

Anyway, here’s my present dilema.  My flaccid penis is about 50% what it once was in volume but erect i’m about 95%.  It’s always been reassuring to get it hard and measured to find I’m nearly at my peak.  The penis pain I experience is worse after a heavy session/proper sex with another live person so I try and refrain as much as possible.

The proble is, on days when the pain is less, the shrinkage seems worse and my penis is smaller than ever before.  This leads me to get the measuring tape out again and so on the vicuous circle goes.  That at least seems to bring some life back intot he old fella and normally reassures me.  lately, however, things have definitely taken a turn for the worse and I’m not hitting the heights I once was.

If I’ve gone a few days without seeing the organ hard then I’m terrified I’ll be much smaller than I was and all I can think about when having sex is that my girlfriend will have noticed a great difference.  This leads to insecurity and premature ejaculation.  I’m sure she’d far rather have me lasting as I used to rather than an extra couple of milimetres in girth but I just can’t shake this feeling.

I really wish I could stop masturbating/measuring for some time to see if there’s some improvement but I need the reassurance too much, especially when the flaccid atrophy continues unabatted.

Hormone test results

Just had the results from my latest blood test.  The results are: 

Testosterone - 17.4 
LH - 2.3 
FSH – 3.7
Procaltyn – 210

This is down in most areas from last year, when my results were: 

Testosterone – 19.9
Lh – 5.0
FSH – 3.0
Procaltyn – 225

But I don’t know what this means.  Are these variations normal deviations or are they a sign of what’s going wrong?  

Any input from hormone experts would be great.

I’ve always thought that hormone problems were an unlikely cause of my penile shrinkage as I don’t have any of the other symptoms associated with low testosterone but the fact the levels are dropping makes me wonder.  All the lab results said were that these numbers were within “normal” range.

Another pointless consultation…

 

Another visit to a urologist (I think the 5^th I’ve seen in all) has left me more convinced than ever that if my penis is ever to stop shrinking, it won’t be any thanks to the medical profession.

 

After travelling for two hours, at a not inconsiderable cost, I arrived at the hospital only to discover that the doctor I saw last year wasn’t in today and I would be seen by someone new, someone unfamiliar with my case history.

 

He started by telling me that the results of blood tests indicated normal hormone levels and said, “So, everything stablised then, yes?”.  I told him that was far from the case, that the atrophy continued at a frightening rate and that I experienced pain in my penis on a daily basis.

 

The doctor then examined me.  This consisted of him feeling around for about a minute and taking a quick length measurement.  He told me to dress and said there was little, if any, difference from the previous measurement taken.  Frustrated, I explained that the main problem I experienced was diminishing girth, not length and that the previous doctor had been far more thorough and taken measurements of my circumference and also testicle size.

 

This didn’t appear to have any impact on the doc, who had clearly made up his mind how this was going to proceed before he even examined me.  He said that I should make an appointment at my GP’s to have more blood taken so this could be compared to the previous test.  He then said that we could talk about penis lengthening surgery.  At this point I lost just about all belief I ever had in the medical profession.  I have lost some length, yes, but it is the loss of girth that has been occurring for over 12 years that bothers me.  I explained this to the doctor and told him I didn’t want to be bigger than nature intended me, or event o get back what I have already lost, only for the shrinkage to stop.

 

I was then treated to yet another lecture that other than monitoring hormone levels, and performing ultrasounds, there were no other tests that could be carried out.  I told him I had spoken to dozens of men online who have suffered similarly and he was completely dismissive of any possible cause I suggested (elevated oestrogen, autoimmunity, tissue adhesion etc).  In fact, he point blank refused to order an oestrogen test when my hormone level is checked as he said this would be reflected in my testosterone level.

 

I was told to make an appointment at the next available date (Early December) and to try not and worry about this as it would make my symptoms worse.  I was instructed to take paracetamol for the pain and advised that I may benefit from psychological help.

 

I would love to say this was unbelievable but unfortunately I’ve come to expect nothing else.

Two stories of severe shrinkage

Two guys who’ve contacted me privately have shared their similar stories of penile atrophy, despite them being at very different stages of life.

The first is a 19-year-old who has been experiencing penile shrinkage since the age of about 16.  His penis measures around two inches less than it did when his problems began.  He says he’s now less than 3″ erect and is almost inverted when flaccid.

he’s receiving counselling and is taking part in a video diary where doctors monitor the shrinkage on a weekly basis to try and establish a pattern.  To say this poor dude is devastated would be a massive understatement.  He feels his whole life is over before it really began, that he’s not a proper man and that there’s little to live for.

I’ve not heard from him for a while and from his state of mind I’ve serious reason to fear from him.  If he does read this I’d love for him to get in touch just to say he’s okay as I really fear for his safety.

The other is a middle-aged guy who started experiencing severe atrophy for the first time in his life less than a year ago and for no apparent reason.  The shrinkage has happened at a frightening rate and from 4″+ he now measures less than 2″ hard.  The doctors felt there was a problems with his testicles (also atrophying and causing him pain) and removed them to see if this would stop the shrinkage.  Alas, this did not and the medics now say they may have to stitch his glans to the skin of his groin to stop the penis disappearing completely into his body.

The doctors say the tissue of his penis is adhering to itself, causing the shrinkage and is most likely caused by some unkown allergen.  I feel devastated for the guy but at least he’s bearing up remarkably well, far better than most men would under the circumstances.

These are extreme cases and far more severe than most sufferers experience.  If we can take anything from these cases it’s that the doctors actually seem to be taking their complaints seriosuly.  The more doctors who know about this, the more chance ther eis of finding a cure/treatment and helping us all.

If you are experiencing penile atrophy and stumbled across this blog whilst searching for information then don’t be an embarrassed and please visit your doctor.  Even if they can’t help it’s another step towards this condition being recognised.