Summary

This is a summary for new readers.

About 5 years ago, I developed adult onset phimosis. It started really slowly and took about 3 years to reach the stage you see in the picture on the left.

Characterised by a white, hardened ring on the upper portion of the foreskin, this form of phimosis has no known cause. I'm not sure it is BXO and since there is no inflammation of the head, its not balanitis.

Nevertheless, it is phimosis and it had gotten to the point where I could no longer have sex without pain and bleeding. I read up about it and immediately decided not to see a doctor, considering I knew they would either prescribe steroidal creams or circumcise.

So I tried wrapping my penis in plastic wrap every night, after slopping manuka honey on.

Actually, besides the hard, constricting ring on my foreskin, I had also developed a small patch of whitish bumps on my glans. These disappeared after two nights of honey treatment. This convinced me to keep up with the honey wraps, because I didn't notice much progress on the foreskin at first.

I kept it up for months, and did receive enough improvement to be able to have sex again, without pain.

That's where I still am now. I haven't been able to completely get rid of the white ring, but it doesn't cause me any problems.

I'm trying tea tree oil now (manuka honey comes from tea trees), hoping that maybe that is where the active ingredient is more concentrated, but it stings incredibly. If the tea tree oil does completely cure the white ring, I will post about that in the future.

Its been awhile

And I still never got round to posting those pictures I promised. If you look at the last photo I posted, though, things improved slightly from that, and then I got slack again.

Right now, I'm having a slight recurrence, which is what made me think of my blog again.

There is *definately* a link between having prolonged moisture under the foreskin from seminal fluid and this white ring (well, this is still based on a sample size of one - me, so take it for what its worth)

I haven't got back into using the manuka honey yet ... but I've got back into the routine of hair-drying my penis after washing, and keeping the foreskin retracted as much as possible (here's a hint - cut your pubic hair short), as well as cutting down on the porn (ok, I admit it! I bet this is why a lot of cases are confusing for doctors - they aren't getting all the information)
But yeah, looking at porn in my office causes me to leak pre-cum, and it just sits there all day until I shower after work. Not very professional, I know - but it *does* help me cope with the stress for some reason. But that's a story for my psychologist, not the penis-doctor!

So I go through periods in my life when I'm looking at porn and my penis is getting wet and staying like that for hours and hours, and on a regular basis - like almost every day! During these times is when I notice the "phimosis" getting worse.

Hopefully, my current regimen (I will get back onto the manuka honey soon) will improve things again (my foreskin still isn't nearly as tight as it was when it was at it's worst back in 2008) and then I will hopefully remember about my blog and post those photos I promised.

For all those who read this blog, please remember - this is just my experience - you really must see a doctor. This blog isn't medical advice - its just a little bit of my life story.

Its still good

Thought I'd better post an update.

I've had no functional problems for ages now. No constriction or pain - been having totally normal sex with no problems. I didn't put any honey or anything on from december until now.

that last little stretch of the white phimotic ring never went away though. I always keep my foreskin retracted these days - its just a habit now. But just keeping it dry didn't get rid of that last white stretch, which is about 1cm (1/2 inch) long.

A few weeks ago I noticed the white ring starting to return. It was very slight, but I look carefully these days.

So I've started up putting honey on at night again ... and like before ... after just 2 nights, I'm seeing big results. The whiteness has diminished a lot. Hopefully this time I can get rid of it for good.

Last time the results seemed to good at first, and then get less and less as the weeks went by. I don't know if I was imagining it ... but it seemed like there was some kind of tolerance building up to the honey. So hopefully after this 4 month break, that tolerance has gone, and what is left to 'mop up' is much less than what I started with ... so here's hoping it goes away completely this time.

There is a little scarring on my glans where those raised bumps were, but it is nothing compared to the bumps themselves, and the scarring seems to be going away slowly. All in all, I have a healthier penis, and feel much better about it these days!

wow, some readers

Its nice to see I'm finally in google. awesome.
to those commenting ... thanks for the comments, but I can't give any advice. PLEASE see a doctor.

An update on my condition (I will post photos soon) ... the bumps on the glans are completely gone. phew.

the phimotic ring is stable. its not really getting better or worse. But this may be because I haven't been doing anything lately - I had a very busy december holiday period and haven't applied honey for a month. I've started using hydrogen peroxide on a cotton bud (q-tip) once or twice during the day instead - its a lot cleaner and easier to manage. I'm also keeping the foreskin retracted as much as possible.

As a side note, every day, between 2 and 5 times, I pull the foreskin back, usuallly because it has gotten covered again. When I do it, I pull it as far back as I comfortably can. This might actually be part of what is helping - this stretching.

One thing I'm almost sure of now - precum or semen seems to aggravate the condition. If I get aroused and get some precum (this happens too easily for me, unfortunately) and it wets the top of my foreskin for a long time, the white ring will get visibly bigger. If I have sex or masturbate at night and dont wash before going to sleep, in the morning, the white ring will be more pronounced. Keeping all traces of semen off my penis seems to be what got rid of the bumps on the glans. I'm not completely sure of that, but once I realised this might be the problem (see my earlier posts), and kept my glans free of semen at all times, the bumps disappeared a lot quicker, and now they are completly gone.

when is a cure a cure?

Well, I'm keeping going with my treatment, though a bit more haphazardly these days.

There is still a bit of a phimotic ring which causes a bit of tightness if I try and retract my foreskin completely during erection.

But I have no pain, no more tearing, can urinate completely normally and can function sexually like normal.

I am going to keep going to try and completely get rid of the phimotic ring and those weird bumps on the glans, and then hope they never come back, but I think that may take a few months.

But in summary, this treatment has worked for me. I went from painful erections, pain and tearing during sex and difficulty retracting my foreskin enough to have a clear path for urinating (and spraying all over the place) to normality. I have basically kept the foreskin retracted as much as possible, 24 hours. At night, I've applied a teaspoon of manuka honey all over the glans and phimotic ring, still retracted, and wrapped it in saran wrap (Glad wrap in New Zealand). During the day, I keep it totally dry. After showering, I dry it with a blow dryer (on cool) to get it all silky dry. I pull the foreskin back as much as I can a few times a day to stretch it. I don't do any other kind of stretching.

I don't wash it with soap - just shower gel once a day during showering. If I need to clean it after sex, I just rinse well with warm water (and blow dry again). Keeping it dry is essential to prevent secondary infections - a few of these started up on the lower shaft skin, because it gets all bunched up because of keeping the foreskin retracted all the time. Not using soap prevents infections/inflamations on the glans. This happened too, but quickly subsided when I realised what caused it.

So that's it. Obviously I'm not a doctor, and I don't recommend this as a treatment for anyone. I'm just putting it up on the internet for others to learn from. Always consult a medical professional, or two, or three for serious health issues.

still going

As I've said before, this isn't a quick fix.

But there is still progress, though I had a small setback, since I got a small tear on the phimotic ring during the week from some ... er ... rough play. I have to remind my wife that just because it has improved, doesn't mean its back to normal.

I'm finding that keeping the foreskin dry and retracted seems to be just as, if not more important than applying honey. I use a hairdryer (on cool) to get it 100% completely, bone dry before getting dressed. (incidentally, I find doing the same thing with my underarms helps a lot to prevent Body Odour)

I gave up on the condoms for containing the honey - they did basically just squeeze the honey away from where it needed to be, and into that pocket teat thing on the end. Plus I'm not sure, but I'm suspecting anaerobic activity may be the problem, which is why keeping it dry helps.

On that note, I have another theory ... with the easy access to prurient material on the internet these days, I have found myself all to regularly getting a bit aroused sitting here at my desk. Precum flows and moistens the tip of my penis, and a little bit underneath the foreskin too ... just the top part, where the phimotic ring is. So now I wonder whether it may be the moist environment caused by the precum that is promoting bacterial growth, or whether the phimotic ring is some kind of allergic reaction to the precum - kind of like eczema? I don't know - I suck these ideas out of thin air! I may be imagining it, but when I have been too busy for a week or two (or just plain uninterested) to view sex blogs and forums, and kept up with keeping my foreskin dry, the phimosis has been better ... but then it worsens when I have a 'bad' week.

Slow, but positive

I think I've said this before ... the progress is slow, but in the right direction.

I tried the condom idea last night, and it worked pretty well, except that in the morning my foreskin was no longer retracted. I don't know if this matters or not, since the whole area was swimming in honey, but when I was using the saran/glad wrap, it always stayed retraced.

Anyway, the condition continues to improve, except when I take a few days off .... like I did last week. I was really busy for a couple of days, and VERY tired, so I didn't follow through on my treatement regime. I left my foreskin covering my glans (the 'normal' position) during the day and didn't apply the honey at night - for two days.

The whitish spot on my glans reappeared, though it is smaller now. And my foreskin became more inflamed ... but with what I would call a "white inflamation" rather than the normal reddishness that you would think of as inflamation. It became more puffy and less stretchable, and therefore tighter, and it was whiter. I dunno if this is because of white blood cells maybe? Or possibly its just dead skin cells that are white when moist, but the honey, due to its high sugar content, dehydrates it, and of course, during the day, keeping the foreskin retracted keeps it dry too, so the whiteness dimishes. Either way, I don't know, I just know the degree of whiteness changes.

So I resumed my program, and after 2 days, was back to where I was about a week ago. So thats the last time I take a day off! But at least with the treatment, things are always getting better, rather than worse (which was the general direction without any treatment).

At this point, other than the lack of spontaneity caused by having my penis in a honey-sheath at night, my sex life is back to normal - the condition, although not cured, is no longer a disability.