Introduction

Hi,

I am creating this blog to document my self-treatment of self-diagnosed phimosis caused by BXO (Balanitis Xerotica Obliterans).

My theory is that the whitish, hardened ring around my foreskin is caused by an infectious agent, probably a virus. The hardened skin may be caused by the immune system reacting to the infection.

I have what I think are good reasons for that theory, but being a factory manager, rather than a research scientist makes it difficult for me to test my theory. I will elaborate on the reasons in later posts.

Up until about age 27, my foreskin was normal. Around this age, I noticed a slight tightening, but for at least a year or two, I wasn't sure if I was imagining it. That is how slowly this condition developed. At about 29, I knew there was a problem, but since it was progressing so slowly, I didn't do anything about it. It wasn't affecting my sex life at all.

Then around age 30/31 it started to progress at a faster rate, and became a little painful during sex, because my foreskin couldn't stretch comfortably over my erect glans anymore.

Also, I noticed a small patch of little whitish bumps on my glans had developed too. At first I thought this was just a little scab or something caused by a little too-vigorous sex. But it didn't go away, and became worse. The best way I can describe it is like a little wart - very flat, only raised about 0.2mm, oval in shape, the bumps more widely spaced than in a typical skin wart.

This patch was slowly getting whiter and greater in diameter. This concerned me a lot more than the foreskin, because I always knew, in the back of my head, that I could just get circumcised and my foreskin problem would be gone. But what if this warty thing took over my whole penis? The thought of losing my penis was quite scary.

I phoned my GP (a woman) and asked if I could have a referral to a urologist, but she refused to refer me without seeing me herself - so I told her not to worry about it, and took it no further.

One night, in the shower, the patch on my glans worried me more than usual. It was whiter and more pronounced than a day before - it seemed this disease was accelerating.

The Cure

I love The Cure. Well, some of their songs. Boys dont cry.

But that's irrelevant here. But I do love a cure too. I have known for a long time about the properties of honey - it has been used for ages to treat stomach ulcers. Manuka honey from New Zealand is renowned for its ability to treat skin wounds and skin infections, even of the highly resistant MRSA. I have used it a couple of times on slightly infected cuts and it has worked quite well, though I didn't really have much basis for comparison.

Since I had some in the pantry (some Active 15+ lab tested NZ Manuka honey)I thought I'd put some under my foreskin before I went to bed and see what happened.

Well, what happened blew me away. The bumpy patch on my glans seemed to have disappeared. It hadn't, but it had turned from white back into normal glans color, and it had shrunken. On closer inspection over the following days, I realised it hadn't gone down much at all, and I even wondered if I was imagining things. But the color had definately changed drastically. And it was that which spurred me on. I kept on applying the honey under my foreskin at night for about 4 nights, and it kept improving, ever so slightly.

I also noticed that my foreskin was changing. Around this time, I did some more reading on forums around the net and came across one post where someone said he cured his phimosis by retracting his foreskin almost continually (to simulate circumcision) and cleaning with hydrogen peroxide.

Well, I knew that one of the ways honey works to kill infection is by a slow production of hydrogen peroxide. But Manuka honey is even more effective than normal honey at killing bugs. So I figured I would follow that poster's method, except I would apply honey at night instead of peroxide.

I kept my foreskin retracted all day, as much as possible (it sneaks back in there all the time, and requires frequent trips to the men's room to get it back again). At night, I would also keep my foreskin retracted, coated in honey, and wrapped with saran wrap (or as we call it over here, Glad wrap) I learnt quickly not to wrap it tightly - spontaneous erections during sleep can be quite uncomfortable!

I have followed this program for two weeks now. The results are not conclusive as yet ... but I am encouraged enough so far to create this blog. I have some photos I will upload soon.

Either way, win or lose, I will leave the results here for others to read.

The most promising thing so far? My foreskin is looser, definately. It is no longer painful to have an erection, and I can retract my foreskin during erection easily. There is still tightness there, and in some ways it seems things may have gotten worse (I will elaborate later).

One thing I also learnt the hard way - penises don't like being washed with soap. Just a nice rinse with warm water and very, very gentle wiping with a finger are better. The poster who inspired me mentioned he used some sort of non-soap cleanser, but I read on a medical site somewhere that warm water is usually sufficient. Either way, after washing twice a day with soap for a few days, my glans started to turn all red and inflamed, which at first I thought was an infection caused by the honey, until that aforementioned medical site made me realise it was probably the washing with soap twice a day that caused the inflamation. It subsided slowly over 3 days when I stopped using the soap.

More will be published as it happens ...