FrankTalk.org

Its been an interesting time since my implant surgery early last Friday. Today I took my first bath in years having always preferred showers. I found it quite soothing and plan to follow that part of the recovery protocol (2-3 hot baths a day for a week) as best I can.

This is what I've experienced so far.

Pain: day of the surgery I was glad to have the hydromorphone and took one every four hours (surgery was at 7:30AM). Even so it was hard to sleep as the pain wasn't completely eliminated. It reminded me of the after effect of high dose PGE-1 ICP injections. The day after the surgery I allowed a longer interval, yesterday I allowed even more time between, and now haven't taken one in over twelve hours. I'm managing so far with aleve. The only area of lingering discomfort I have is where the pump sits in my scrotum.

Catheter: it was in for three days and caused a fair bit of irritation at the tip. But it was easy to take out. Only challenge is peeing with a semi erection (sorry sink).

Size: I was definitely concerned about loss of size as I'd already lost over 1 1/2" due to peronie/fibrosis (from high dose trimix ICP). Going into the surgery Dr. Eid measured me at 6.25" using injection. Doing the same I measured myself at 6.5". And via VED I easily managed 7". Removing the bandages today the immediate visual was that I was smaller. But I followed the advice of another member and actually measured the semi erection I had. It was 5.9", and that without any glands engorgement. Girth was about 5.25". This was at partial inflation of the implant. Once I follow the post surgical rehab I'm hoping to get out to 6.5" again with glans engorgement. Glans engorgement is a concern of mine too. But even with the quality of the erection at this point it is rigid enough I could have sex with it.

Swelling/Appearance: I was quite surprised that other than the incision my penis looked fine, no bruising or obvious swelling. Its a bit bumpy due to peyronie plaque but otherwise okay. My scrotum is another story. Its not grossly swollen but about half again as large and projects forward. I'm pretty sure the visual effect is to make my penis look shorter when it is not actually substantially shorter.

In general one thing I noticed too late to benefit from was that the jock I was sent home with was a bit small for my torso and overpacked with bandage material. I say overpacked because it was a lot more than the residual bleeding seemed to require. As a result there was a lot of pressure on my penis and scrotum which caused more discomfort than had a larger jock or less padding been used.

Also, pre op Dr. Eid's doppler study showed I have substantial fibrosis through the mid shaft. Eid said he had some concern about getting through that and being able to dialate the corpus enough for the desired implant. He said it was possible he'd have to do a temporary malleable implant which I definitely didn't want. As it happened he was able to and the entire surgery only took about 90 minutes as best I can tell. I received a 22CM Titan with 1CM RTE. Thats an additional CM larger than the max he estimated per surgery. I attribute that to following the pre surgery VED protocol that can be found here. http://file.scirp.org/Html/3-1990021_27133.htm I believe it definitely helped. So far so good.

Ableman, great post. I have a similar problem with tri mix scarring in the middle shaft. Eid mentioned during phone call that he might have to implant a malleable rod and then remove it and implant the inflatable cylinders. That is not an option for me. How did you handle it with Dr Eid? i.e. if one can't implant the IPP, then just close up and be done with it? Or were you willing to give him permission to do the malleable rod if he could not do the IPP. By Dr. Eid's own statements concerning Malleable rods, he made it clear to me at least that it was the worst option due to pain and other risks associated with the surgery. I appreciate your thoughts.....

Hello Cumstein.

Thats a good question.

Basically I told Dr. Eid that I preferred not to have the malleable but I didn't tell him he would have to close me up again if he couldn't get the corpus dilated for a three piece. Once they are that far if they just close you up I think your toast as far as any kind of regular erection so I would have tolerated, not been happy for sure, but tolerated the rods for a few months. And, I figured, he's one of the best if not the best and if he couldn't get through then it was small odds anyone else can. He also told me a story about spending three hours making a channel for someone with full shaft length fibrosis. So I knew he wasn't likely to give up once he started.

Instead what I decided to do what to try and "help" him by making the corpus as permeable as possible.

At one point I scheduled some Ziaflex injections. I was going to try to convince a URO in my home state to inject straight into the corpus. Xiaflex is intended just for injection into plaque in the tunica and there are warnings it can destroy or damage the corpus. But I figured the corpus was going to get somewhat destroyed anyway by the implant procedure so why not let the Xiaflex dissolve some of the fibrosis (which to an extent is earlier stage plaque). Ultimately I didn't do this though because it got to close to my surgery date by the time Medicare approved the injections. Then the risk was the corpus would have been too weak and inflation of the implants might cause corporeal rupture. But, if I had to do it over again, and there was more time, I might have gone this route.

What I did do was follow the VED program referred to in the url in my earlier post. I followed it religously and that really helped stretch out the corpus. I also followed a nutrient/drug rehab program described for peyronie's which has minor success at reversing fibrosis but I believed it kept the tissue softer. Basically it was Pentox (prescriptions drug), nightly Cialis (5mg.), and a host of over the counter supplements including a Nattokinase/Serrapeptase anti-fibrolytic. Note that if you take the Pentox and Nattokinase/Serrapteptase you probably want to stop a week before the implant surgery as they thin the blood noticeably and increase bleeding.

Then I just hoped for the best and it turned out well with the implant and the VED added a cm (in the form of an RTE) to his presurgery measurement he could implant. I'd recommend to anyone considering an implant to follow an aggressive VED program the weeks before the surgery.