Rodsmen’s Journal and Recommendations

[Rodsmen]

Rodsmen’s back story and journal objectives

I am a very sexually active 67 year-old married gay man, together with my husband for 30 years in a totally open relationship. I never, ever had my dick fail on me until I was 50, and then started using dick pills for sex parties. I started using them regularly by my late 50’s, as I recall. They worked, in combination with cock rings. By the time I was 64 I resorted to Trimix. I am in the 20% that have sensitivity to the main ingredient. I tried Bimix, but even 100 units was unreliable. I tried 3 different formulas of Trimix and countless dosages. It is very inconsistent, and after about 90 minutes it would result in severe pain that made a hard-on useless. I ended up using less, along with a very tight overall cock ring (around my dick and balls), as well as a ball stretcher. I would have to constantly take the tight rings off to give it a rest and put them back on. Keeping the Trimix refrigerated on trips, and shooting it at bars and parties was a real drag, to say the least. Fortunately, it is very common in gay circles in the US, to the extent that some bars and parties have sharps containers for Trimix users, and I would often meet other men using it at parties, which was obvious by those of us that had hard-ons non-stop, even when we were getting drinks, being social, etc. I then started using a pump just before using Trimix to get a better result. A ten-minute pump session alone would work for about 20 minutes (with very tight cock rings), but that is way too little time, and like with Trimix, hardly something that enhances spontaneity. I spend $9,000 on low-impact penis therapy at two urologists, as well as enriched plasma shots. None of that did anything, and after I had spent $6,000 with the last urologist, he did an ultrasound test that showed that I had venous leakage, which can really only be dealt with by getting an implant. I only wish he had done that test before I spend another $6,000 with him.

I spent quite a bit of time doing research on implants, including every peer-reviewed medical paper I could find and reading many hundreds of pages of personal accounts on FrankTalk.org and other sites. The hardest thing was to find the best surgeon in Los Angeles. Unlike many who have few, or even only a single choice where they live, there are many dozen surgeons in LA that purport to do implant surgeries. None of them are on-line rock stars like in NYC or Houston. I talked with the Boston Scientific (AMS) and Coloplast (Titan) reps and got their lists of high-volume surgeons. I cross-referenced that with my gay urologist (as opposed to my urologist that did my TURP surgery last year, and recommended the gay one for this) who recommended two surgeons at UCLA. I was unimpressed with the one he told me about first, but then I went to see Dr. Jesse Mills, who heads the Men’s Clinic at UCLA, and teaches the surgery internationally. About a third of his patients are re-do’s from botched jobs from other surgeons, as well as quite a few porn stars. (I have located a few of them. Most are closeted about having implants, with the biggest exception being “Dallas Steele.”) The only concern I had about him is that he only uses the AMS implant. He clearly works very closely with them, as he had detailed knowledge of their factories world-wide. He cited the better reliability of their current pump, the rigidity of the AMS 700 CX variant, and the built-in antibiotic. Since my biggest fear was of the terrible consequences of infection, I felt good about it. My real concern was with size. I had been pumping in anticipation of the surgery and had gotten to over 8” x 7-1/2”, and the forums all said that you had to get a Titan to avoid losing size in that range. Dr. Mills assured me that I would not lose size relative to my un-pumped size, so I trusted him and went ahead with the AMS 700 CX.

In this journal I hope to provide good advice to men who are considering, or are getting implants in the future. There are extensive photos of my resulting appearance and progress over time, which I hope are comforting to others who might be alarmed by what they see at various points of recovery. I will also be posting an overall timeline of a compendium of what I have gleaned from my doctor and the posts of hundreds of other men who have gone before me of what I believe to be best practices for an optimum recovery. The list has not (yet) been vetted by a physician, but I believe it to be conservative, with nothing that really contradicts what appears to be widespread advice. I refer to dates as surgery plus or minus the number of days before or after surgery so that readers might better be able to translate it to their own dates. If time permits, I would like to create a spreadsheet to which a man could enter their surgery date and clearly see when recommendations apply. Ideally, it would access a calendar that would also translate the date relative to surgery to actual calendar dates, adjusted as needed for future years. (Please let me know if anyone is a good at writing spreadsheets, I would love to work together.)

[Jage64]

this will be a tremendous resource for many, thank you for taking the time to put it together.

I too am a CX owner and extremely happy.

[Rodsmen]

this will be a tremendous resource for many, thank you for taking the time to put it together.

I too am a CX owner and extremely happy.

Thank you for the assurances from another CX owner. I will post more as soon as I know how to add posts without repeating previous posts, as well as whether it is possible to copy/paste with photos, since I have composed in another app. I have sent a message to the admin.

[Rodsmen]

Day of Surgery
Day 0

It was a very smooth process, with my actual surgeon, rather than his surgical assistant or fellow seeing me both before and after surgery. That made me feel good compared to some horror stories I had seen online. On the day of surgery, a nurse came by about every 5 minutes to check on me. It was amazing care at UCLA. I was very surprised to be handed a rather extensive menu from which to choose homemade meals. That’s quite a departure from other hospital food I have had the displeasure of experiencing. It wasn’t spectacular, but was better than the food on our recent cruise.

It was painful, but they were able to control the pain quite well. It wasn’t pleasant, but wasn’t really terrible either. My dick was mummified, with a drain and a catheter as I had been told to expect. They were monitoring my urine and blood output to determine whether the catheter could be removed. To my relief, I passed the urine test and they were able to remove it. Then I passed the second part of the test by being able to pee without it. A nurse removed it in the middle of the night since I was wide awake the entire night watching TV on my iPad. I can’t sleep on my back, plus I had a reaction to one of the drugs that made me feel wired and jittery. I also did not have the option of vaping some weed to go to sleep.

Day 0 Surgical notes pg 1 of 2.jpg (747.74 KiB) Viewed 2036 times

Day 0 Surgical notes 2 of 2.jpg (520.61 KiB) Viewed 2036 times

[Iwillbeatpd]

Great write up, cool to see you trying to help others. I also feel the same as so many here helped me in making my decision. Who knows where I would be if I hadn’t found this forum. Your surgery wasn’t far from mine so will definitely be keeping up with your journey brother!

[Rodsmen]

Before Photos

This should have been posted before the following posts, but will still be useful as a reference when looking at the after photos at various stages.

I pumped multiple times a day for the months I knew my surgery was upcoming. That was both at my surgeon’s advice as well as peer-reviewed medical articles documenting that doing so increased the ease of implantation. My surgeon advised that doing so would maximize the size of the implant that they could use.

In the process, I outgrew three pumps. In the first photo, you can see that I am pressing hard against the top of the 8-inch pump. I preferred it because it had excellent granularity with 8 levels of vacuum, as well as an essential timer. The second photo is a rip-off prescription medical pump with absolutely no suction regulator, which caused significant short-term damage the first time I used it. I used it again—very carefully—to avoid painfully pressing against the end of the 8-inch pump. (I later found a length extender for the 8-inch pump.) At the end, I had increased girth enough that I could barely get out of the 8-inch pump, even with lube.

The later photos show an un-pumped length of 7-1/2” and a girth of 7”. That is the most that I can hope to have after the implant, and I recognize that it might be achieved only after some time of both cycling and exercising.

The last two photos are intended to help with comparisons during recovery. Additional before photos are available via DM.

https://imgchest.com/p/bp45xmmrx75

[ThailandBound]

Excellent journal Rodsman. I recently joined a facebook penile implant group and after having been here on franktalk for a year am astounded by the lack of information many men there possess. I’m referring them frequently to franktalk.

Reports like yours are invaluable. Thank you for taking the time and best wishes on your recovery.

Oh, and congratulations for winning the genetic lottery!

[cbinspok]

Great documentation Rods
Enjoy the healing process, don’t rush and damage.
Keep it going, baby steps.
Hugs C

[Rodsmen]

Surgery +1 The day after

One of my surgeon's assistant doctors came in at 6 AM to remove the dressing and the drain, as it had stopped putting out anything. I was relieved at that, as the alternative was to keep it in, along with the bulb that I would have to wear. I don’t know if they would have made me keep it for the two weeks until my follow-up appointment.

I had no problem with the car ride home and was able to lie down with my feet up and use ice as advised. My doctor has me on 1,000 mg of Tylenol every 8 hours, which he said to take for 2 weeks regardless of how much I think I can stand the pain. I did take one narcotic pain pill at 8 AM, but that was the only one required.

My first look at my “new dick” was jarring, as it was shorter and thinner than before, as I expected to at least some degree, as well as quite significantly bent. I sent a message to the doctor, and the assistant surgeon responded that it was totally straight when inflated during surgery, and could straighten when I am not fully pumped up in time. I will certainly be doing “THE Exercise” religiously for the first four months.

Keeping my dick pointing toward my belly button was somewhat of a challenge. I had purchased three of the brands of underwear that were recommended online, but they were all worthless at that point because of glans sensitivity. I had purchased gauze pads and surgical tape in case that was a problem, and taping across my lower abdomen with the gauze protecting my dick worked well, except that I would have to use new tape every time I had to pee. (See attached photo.) It was kind of a breakthrough because I could then sleep on my side and it would stay pointing directly at my belly button. That, and vaping weed allowed me to sleep for the first time since surgery.

https://imgchest.com/p/9ryd5r6j64k

[Rodsmen]

Surgery + 2 Second day after surgery

The second day brought significantly less pain than the day before. One of the reasons that I was pleased with that is that any nerve block that Dr. Mills used during surgery must have worn off (?), so the pain was only being warded off by the Tylenol.

The pump sits very low in my scrotum. It is pushing against the bottom of my scrotum, which I fear could be an ongoing issue with comfort. My scrotum is tight and wrinkled up as if I had just been in cold water, and has not become at all normal since surgery, despite there being limited swelling. Perhaps it will be less of an issue after healing, but I have seen men online talk about low pumps and them frequently getting in the way and having to adjust themselves or take other measures. It also looks weird and is clearly visible at this point.

I continued to use the tape and gauze method to hold my dick in the upright position. I then found some old compression shorts that eliminated the need for the tape and gauze, except when I wanted to sleep on my side, so I used a combination of both when sleeping. The shorts also provided enough protection that I could use the frozen peas and ice pack directly on the compression shorts.

https://imgchest.com/p/dl7pj8dvj7o