My Journal

[conway_96]

This journal has been awesome. Thanks merrix.

As I'm sure most of you have noticed, implantees tend to be very active leading up to, and in the immediate aftermath of surgery, but most disappear after a few months, leaving those of us in the research phase wondering about their long-term success.

Please keep updated, even if it's less periodically.

These journals are extremely valuable.

Conway

[danny1553]

Alibaba

You are so right about "When it does not work it affects EVERY aspect of our daily life, whether we are willing to admit it or not."
No matter how much I try to convince myself that "it is no big deal"... but overall it does kill your abmitions, your energy, your mood, your desires.
I used to be an "effortless" for the significant decisions such as moving to another province, city or even country, changing job, etc. But now all of a sudden I've noticed that in my planning for the future I am thinking more in the context of retirement rather than a carrier advance, while I am only 43.
So I might still look OK externally, but internally I am exhausted...

[alibaba]

Agreed danny1553 and it creeps up on us till one day we realize it has just knocked us on our ass. Mine started at age 39 after a surgery. It had beat the $#it out of me by 49 except 2 very exciting months that year it worked and still kicking my ass at 58. I wish you much luck finding the answer so you can move on. I can tell you getting a surgery date gave me a surge of energy and relief but that has died out with a lousy implant job. I am looking forward to the surge again with a new surgery date, hopefully soon. Cheers my man. Seek and find an answer. Slap the #uck out of anyone who gets in your way.

[moetheman]

Yeah ED sucks big time. So draining mentally. Lately I've been feeling better at work and in general, knowing that I've got a revision coming up. I really hope it gets sorted this time. I don't think I would have much more to give after that.

[alibaba]

I hope it gets sorted too. I have a feeling Eid will not give up till he is satisfied. I think he has the same mindset I have with work I do. If I am not satisfied then my customer won't be either. I've had customers tell me they were satisfied when I was not but why should they settle for less and why should I have it on my mind for decades that I did not feel right about it? Good luck sir. You deserve it having to do it twice plus pay for it! Hell, having to do it twice you aught to come home with 2 dicks and a circus train just for the aggravation and a consolation prize. d

[merrix]

Problems at this stage:

* Still having pain when inflating to max. Maximum inflation for me is 25-30 pumps. First ~20 pumps will be complete wall-to-wall pumps, and thereafter the bulb can be less and less squeezed for every pump. The last pump will barely do anything. After 10 pumps dick will point at 3:30. After 20 it basically looks and points (2:30) like fully inflated, just not being as hard.
Pain sets in after around 15-20 pumps. Both in tip and ass, i.e. in both ends. Tip pain is only there when inflating without arousal. with arousal and glans engorgement there is no pain in tip. Pain in ass is not nice but manageable. I always used to pump up to max for sex despite the pain, and it is no showstopper. More a worry for oversizing.

* Still get a bit sore in the left groin after long/hard sex. Guess it is as simple as that the tubing to the reservoir gets pushed around with every deep, forceful thrust. No big issue though, since it goes away after a few hours and it is no strong pain, just feeling some slight soreness. Wife is super-fit and has no extra padding either...

* Another problem: Have stayed off heavy stuff in the gym till now. 11 weeks. Have done dips, chins, curls, presses, leg extensions since week 7, and can push to the max on those with heavy weights without issues. Tried deadlifts for first time today. Warmed up extremely gently with the barbell only. No problem. Put on the belt and took next warmup set at 135 lbs kg. Didn't work. Felt like the belt in combination with the intra-abdominal pressure pushed the reservoir. I could feel something 'clicking' or moving with the first two reps. Gave up immediately. Still stuck with the target of being able to do proper heavy deadlifts and squats in the summer, i.e. roughly six months post op. But it feels like quite a long way to go to get back to the 5*5 of 400+ lbs deadlifts...

* Have had no problem at all to orgasm any time when having sex till a few days ago. Did for some reason try to take 50 mg Viagra before sex that time (had never done that till then after implant). Felt no difference in any positive way, and maybe that was the reason I couldn't come, but that sounds weird as well.

Good things:

* Having no other issue basically than the pain at max inflation. And that is good...

* Had sex again yesterday, and no problem at all again to orgasm. Think that one session without orgasm was a one-off...

* Tried to inflate a bit less for sex to see if I could find a level without ass-pain but still have good sex. Worked wonders. Pumped around 20 pumps. No pain in neither end, and hard enough. Actually it felt better in some way with an 80% inflation than a 100%. Felt more natural. A full inflation really feels like having a baseball bat. The feeling is like I could smash the dick in a hard surface and it would make a knocking sound like metal to wood. The dick when fully inflated is basically not giving in a single millimeter when squeezed. It feels sort of like it is only skin over a rock hard material. Which it is... Pumping a bit less makes the dick feeling more natural as it gives a few mm when being squeezed and it can bend slightly inside a vagina, which again makes it feel more natural. And to be honest, I felt more pleasure as well. Don't know why, but felt like my glans was more sensitive this way.
Asked wife afterwards how she felt. Did it feel noticeable smaller (thinner)? I had told her before I would not pump to max and that she should be prepared for a thinner and softer dick than what she's had lately. Her reply was that she thought I had abandoned my plan and went for a full inflation anyway. She felt no difference in size or hardness. Strange, but she wouldn't lie.
She did however feel a difference in size after I came. When fully inflated she feels no difference on size before or after I come. Now she did. I am no doctor, but my guess is the explanation is that whatever size gain I get from the spongiosum drowns in the fully inflated size, so that even when the spongiosum goes soft after orgasm, there is no noticeable difference. But with a less than maximum full cavernosa (i.e. cylinders) the loss of spongiosum fullness is noticeable. Who knows. Both of us were happy with the 80% inflation anyway. No difference for the wife and more feeling and no pain for me.

What else?
Can add that I am still working on the mental issue of this. I am well on my way, but still feel a bit weird having an implant in my dick and having to pump it before sex. I am getting more and more used to it, and I am already sure it will be 100% (well 99%) ok within soon.

I am also more and more happy about the whole thing as time goes by. Only issue left now is the ass pain when pumping max. I see three outcomes. One bad, one good, one ok.
The good one: It will disappear over time.
The ok one: It will stay like this, and I just pump a bit less than full.
The bad one: I am oversized and erosion is bound to happen.
Can just wait and see.
The reason of the pain is obviously the very, very aggressive sizing by Dr. Eid. He told me he was right on the border for what I could take. I am still happy he did his utmost to maximize size. Not because of size per se, but because I have the cylinders so well up in the glans so that my dick feels just perfect when having sex. And the tips cannot, as I said above, be felt when aroused and glans is engorged with blood. Not even when squeezing it with my fingers. When flaccid though, the tips are very noticeably felt with fingers. High up in the glans. I tried to measure. No exact science with 100% reliability, but my estimation is my engorged glans is 4 cm long, and the cylinders to 3 cm into the glans.

Anyway, the sex is great and I am glad I did this. It is just so fucking great to fuck without worrying over the dick going soft. Yesterday is a good example of what I am talking about. Bought the wife (one more) set of sexy underwear recently on one of my business trips. She wore it under her dress yesterday, and surprised me when we went to bed. She looks absolutely fantastic in it. Now I can take full opportunity, and she knows it has the right effect. Makes me horny as hell. But the difference is now I can make full use of it. In the old days, an occasion like this was what hurt the most of all the dick-going-soft-moments. It just becomes even more pathetic when the partner has made efforts with stockings, garters etc - and then the dick goes soft. That's just a pathetic feeling. In the end what happens is it is easy to just avoid situations like that. Avoid making something extra in terms of underwear, dirty talk, places or whatever. Rather fail in a regular league game than in the world cup final so to say...
Anyway, now all obstacles are cleared and we both know all will work great. Every time.

Hallelujah?

[RelievedofED1]

I have noticed the same thing Merrix re pumping to max versus backing off a little. I think it feels better. My assumption right or wrong was that having some stretch and capacity left in the penis allowed some natural blood flow at least for me and more spongiousum flow and glans enlargement. Hence more sensation. My wife also doesn't notice the difference which should be reassuring to us all that stiff is important but incremental size changes don't matter to them. Good to hear you are moving toward hallelujah. Congrats?

[merrix]

I have noticed the same thing Merrix re pumping to max versus backing off a little. I think it feels better. My assumption right or wrong was that having some stretch and capacity left in the penis allowed some natural blood flow at least for me and more spongiousum flow and glans enlargement. Hence more sensation. My wife also doesn't notice the difference which should be reassuring to us all that stiff is important but incremental size changes don't matter to them. Good to hear you are moving toward hallelujah. Congrats?

I can buy in to your assumption. As I said, I think I felt more, which could be because of increased blood flow as you say.
Also, your theory would 100% explain my wife's observations:

80% inflated means spongiosum compensates the loss of girth from inflating cylinders only 80%. So no difference in girth before orgasm. But after orgasm, spongiosum drains and 80% inflation is thinner than 100% inflation.

100% inflated means full cylinders and almost no spongiosum volume. Equals same pre-orgasm girth as the 80% + spongiosum. However, girth remains after orgasm, since cylinders stay full (of course).

Layman's speculation...

[merrix]

It has been 12 weeks now, one week short of three months.

I want to start with telling the FT community that yes – I am happy. I got fantastic results. Don’t think an implant can work much better.
Pump is perfectly hidden behind my balls. Cannot be felt or seen either by myself when I masturbate or my wife when we have sex (unless she grabs my scrotum with her hand of course).
Tips of cylinders are perfectly placed deep into the glans. They go ¾ in to the glans.
I can orgasm as easy, or even easier, than pre-implant.
Orgasms feel slightly stronger, last longer than pre-implant.
My wife says she would not notice on my dick that it is unnatural if she met me today. Unless grabbing the scrotum with her hand of course. But neither during intercourse, nor during oral sex. The dick feels just like a young man’s perfectly hard natural erection.
Size is exactly by the millimeter same as pre-implant.
Glans gets full and hard.
Erect angle is about 2:30. It passes the bath towel test.
Flaccid is big of course, but it hangs down nicely and is not looking weird in clothes.

I don’t feel the pump during any activity. Even when riding a bike. Which I on the other hand only do for short distances. I never do it as a workout. Maybe that’d be different, don’t know.
So Dr. Eid did a fantastic job. I cannot really see anything function wise that could be better.

However, the purpose of My Journal, right from the start when I didn’t know what my outcome would be, was to tell about everything. Good and bad, pain and joy, hopes and doubts. And even tell about my wife’s experience. Just tell the story as it unfolded.
Why? Not because I get a kick out of it. I actually think from a purely egoistic perspective that it’d be better to shut this down and try to forget all about the implant and just use it for good sex. I don’t want to get reminded of it more often than I have to.
But I have started this and want to finish it, whatever finish means in this case.

I also think that the only way to do it is to tell it all. Me telling about all the pain during recovery, all the doubt during recovery, is not me saying I’m unhappy. I expected a rough recovery. But I happily accepted that for the good sake of getting rid of ED. I told myself and my wife already before the surgery that I can take whatever hell there is for months if I get this fucking ED fixed. And initially I got what I asked for. My first two to three weeks was pain wise way beyond what is normal. I also got other weird symptoms (high blood pressure, urine retention, nightly flooding-class sweatings), and I had major issues with my flaccid angle and rigidity in my suit during my first weeks at the office. But it is all behind me now.
So far so good. We all know though that nothing is for granted. Severe issues can manifest months or even years after surgery. Including infection.

One issue I’ve had has been pain in the perineal area when inflating to the max. It has been the last remaining worry I’ve had. I contacted Dr. Eid about it last Friday. As always he got back to me within 24 hours.
I told him about the pain back in the ass which sets in after around 15-20 full wall-to-wall pumps. Told him that the pain in the tip sets in about the same time, but cannot be felt when aroused and the glans is blood-swelled. I asked him what I should do. Stop using the implant for a while, ignore the pain and keep pumping full, or pump till just before it hurts? Which is still providing an erection perfect for sex. In some ways better than a maximally pumped dick actually.
His reply was that it is normal that pain is less with arousal since flesh around cylinders fill with blood.
He said that normally people are fully healed at three months post op (I am one week short from three months…)
He repeated his conviction that there is no need for daily cycling of the implant this long after surgery. Only inflate when using it.
He recommended only to pump to pain-free level, especially since this level in my case is more than enough for good sex.
He reassured me that the perineal pain will go away over time and eventually completely disappear.

Last night I had sex and pumped to 20 pumps. Felt absolutely nothing at all neither in tip nor in the ass. Wife says she actually prefers the 20-pumps erection to the 25-30 pumps fully inflated erection. Says it feels more natural. Same size, same hardness as far as she can feel, but has a more natural feel. She also says she can feel my glans better. And feel its natural changes just before, during and after orgasm. Which she likes.
For me, I would say it feels a bit more natural as well to stop pumping before fully inflated.

One reflection about Eid’s protocol of only inflating when having sex. He claims there is no additional size benefit of doing the twice per day pumping. And that life time expectancy of implant is longer when only pumping for sex.

Think about the life time issue.
Let us say we should follow the protocol advocated in the widely spread article. Twice per day for at least a total of 60 minutes per day, for the first 24 months.
24 months * 30 days * 2 times per day. This means 1440 inflations in two years.
Let us assume the length of life for the implant would be 10 years if used twice per week.
10 years * 52 weeks * 2 times per week = 1040 inflations in ten years.

If number of inflations is the main driver of implant ageing and eventual failure, then the aggressive daily cycling protocol will definitely have a cost which is substantially more frequent revisions.
As with any mechanical devices, a number of factors play a role in the length of life. Age, frequency of use, degree of force during use, random manufacturing variation etc. Certainly 45 minutes inflated without intercourse should reduce length of life less than 45 minutes of in-and-out. On the other hand, for the pump, the in-and-out doesn’t matter. Only number of inflations/deflations. That deflation valve is squeezed the same no matter whether we fuck a cheer-leading team while being hard or read the morning paper.

So I am definitely thinking twice about whether to do the twice-per-day cycling or only use 2-3 times per week for sex. Or anything in between.
Must admit the ~2 cm length gain and ~1 cm girth gains reported in the research paper is appealing (the girth gain more so than the length gain). But cutting length of life of implant in half is not particularly appealing.

-----

Finally a (long) word on my stand in the recently hotter debate here on FT, which I am definitely part of.

I am happy with my implant. Think my results have been as close to perfect as it gets. I do however object to the one-sided posts where people just say that “I have and/or had no issues. Everything has been perfect.” In my opinion that statement is more often than not plain bullshit. That means the person writing this is either lying, had low expectations, is physically inactive, has the most boring sex life, or is semi-retarded. Every normal person would have some degree of pain, doubts, and issues during the recovery period. Not even mentioning the mental mountain to climb. Of course, one can choose to share them with others or keep them for oneself, but everybody will have various degrees of issues during the recovery period.

I am also 100% sure there is a huge difference between how an old man, let us say from 65-70 years old and up, will feel about getting implanted than what someone aged 20-40 would.


Consider these two examples:

One man, 75 years old, been married for 50 years. Have had sex with only his wife for the last 50 years. His wife was never the most adventurous type in bed. He had a perfectly functioning dick till age of 50. Then had ED for 25 years, using pills, injections, pumps and whatever available. Gradually decreasing results from those. Then living for 10 years basically without sex.

And then, at 75 he gets implanted. He is reborn. He can have an erection hard as when he was 18. Well, that’s what he thinks, but actually he doesn’t remember how hard his dick was when he was 18. Actually, his fully inflated 3:30 angle AMS implant dick is not as hard as his 18 yo dick was, but it is so much harder than what he had the previous 30 years, so he thinks it is hard as a rock. He doesn’t really remember that 18 yo erection. He likes to describe his new erection as a railroad spike, but actually he can’t even hang that bathing towel on it. His multiple rear-tip extenders inserted by his local inexperienced surgeon makes his dick a bit wobbly and swively, but hey, he can have sex again. He is reborn. Life is fantastic.

His pump is actually sitting shittily placed by his local crap-surgeon who does 2-3 implants per year, but our guy doesn’t care. He is reborn. He can have sex again. And the high-riding pump makes it easier for his stiff and weak fingers to access it. He wouldn’t want it hidden behind his testicles anyway.
He has no issue with that the pump is visible. His wife is not that fond of oral sex anyway, she never was, and they mostly have their sex sessions under the quilt with lights off, so she won’t see the pump. And she never sucks his balls. Or even touches them.

The cylinders don’t go as far into the glans as they should. The crap surgeon failed to size him correctly. This means his head is a bit floppy, but hey, the last 20 years it’s been floppy anyway. This means certain positions, like the reverse cow-girl, doesn’t work very well. The dick would slide out because of the floppy head. But hey – his 78 year old wife isn’t much for the reverse cow-girl anyway. Her hip-pain, poor fitness and lack of quadriceps strength would mak her stuck in the bottom position and not being able to do the required squatting to make it work. Furthermore, her conservative nature makes her prefer lying on her back anyway. And with lights off, there isn't much benefit of any adventurous positions, so our man is quite ok with the good old missionary.

The tubing was shittily placed by the crap-surgeon, and would cause some discomfort when moving and bending quickly, but our guy doesn’t notice it in daily life. He has back pain, and a bad knee which causes him to walk through life at a considerably slower pace than he did in his hey-days. He has been struggling to get in and out of that car swiftly for the last 5 years, ever since the knee-prosthesis was inserted.

He doesn’t ride a bike anymore because of his stiff knee. He stopped wearing shoes with laces a while ago, because his back hurts when he bends down to tie them. Slip-in loafers is the way to go these days. So that shitty tubing is never in play because our gentleman never pushes the limits of his body anyway. Our guy says the implant and his crap-surgeon are fantastic. He can never feel the implant or the tubing. It must be perfectly installed. Even when he goes to the gym and does his biceps curls with the 5 pounds’ dumbbells he can’t feel his implant. Great.

Our gentleman had an averaged sized dick in his younger days, but it started to shrink with his ED, and it took long time but he learned to accept years ago that his size was simply smaller than when in his prime. Now with his under-sized implant he is down to an erect 4 inches. Could have been 5 if the crap surgeon had done a good job. But hey – our man wouldn’t know that. And he is reborn. He can have sex again, which he hasn’t been able to for many years. It’s fantastic.

He has some concerns about that floppy head, but he is not the man who would question a doctor. The doc said all was good, so that must be the case. And he can have sex again! It is fantastic!

----

Then we consider the 29 old athletic guy who is built like Dwayne Johnson. He lifts some serious weights, he loves downhill mountain biking and alpine skiing, He likes getting some full contact kick boxing in every now and then with his buddy at the gym. This guy had a great dick till recently when the VL hit him like a Mike Tyson uppercut. Being single, he’s a goodlooking bastard and can walk in to any night club an hour before closing time and get the two hottest babes back home with him any time. What they will do to our guy makes the reverse cow-girl look like a Sunday in church.

When ED hit him he got devastated. He feels like his life is over, and he wonders how he will ever find a partner, get married, have kids. And most of all he just feels like his life is over. He was the man of the men, and now he can’t even get a reliable erection.
He can still have half-crappy sex most of the times with pills, but he already feels they are having less effect. And sometimes he just can’t get it up even with pills. Or it goes soft during the act. And those two babes from the nightclub can’t really perform their magic on a limp dick unfortunately.

So our playboy starts investigating an implant. He finds FT and reads the posts from our gentleman above. “Just do it” he says. “It’s great. You won’t regret it”. Luckily our guy is smarter than his muscle mass indicates, and apparently smarter than our gentleman from the example above as well, so he goes to a top-surgeon. He gets his Titan implant which he knows from listening to the top surgeons will give him the hardest erection – which is what he prioritizes over a soft flaccid.

The top surgeon does a great job as he almost always does. Our guy gets an aggressively sized implant with a well hidden pump.
Even though the result is perfect, he feels a bit depressed. It is unfair that he needs to have an implant in his dick to have sex at age 29. Why did this happen to him? It is just unfair.

He has to do some changes to his weight lifting routine. The heavy squats simply don’t work anymore. He knows that’s not the end of the world, but it still hurts to be restricted. His full contact Kick-boxing is a bit in the dark as well. Those round-kicks to the other guys head just doesn’t feel right. The stretch in the groin from that high kick just doesn’t feel good. He guesses it is the tubing that moves. Side kicks with his left foot makes him sore around the reservoir as well.

He hates when he goes to that night club, those two babes rub their tight bodies against him, he touches their perfect tits and doesn’t feel the erection growing in his pants. God he misses that spontaneous erection.

Back home, our guy sits back at the edge of his sofa, the two babes kneeling in front of him, starting their dual oral. One working on the dick and one on his balls. Only there are three of them and one is hard as a rock. He’s in for an embarrassing situation when asked what it is, and he just hates it. Sure, he can do them both really good for a couple of hours, but that thorn in his side is there, and he knows those two 22-year-old babes will have a funny story to discuss tomorrow. Maybe they will share it with someone who knows one of his buddies. He doesn’t want the guys in his gym to know. Neither the guys in his downhill MTB team.

----

Two men. One with a below-average implant result from a technical point of view. And one with an absolute perfect result. The first one, with his below-average results, will post on FT how his life is fantastic, his implant is fantastic and recommends anyone to go ahead and do it. You won’t regret it. He will even post how great his local crap-surgeon is.

The second one, with his state-of-the-art results will be glad he can have sex again. But he still misses his natural erections, his morning wood, and he hates that he had to quit or hold back on his Kick-boxing and his Downhill MTB.
But most of all he hates the moment when the hot babe he picked up starts moaning of pleasure during their 69 and suddenly stops and asks what’s wrong with his balls that she just started sucking while stroking his dick. He just hates it.

So ‘perfect’ can mean very different things to different people. And in this case, I think our first man would have been a lousy advisor to our second guy in his implant research state. They are on different planets in terms of physical activity, and requirements and expectations on their sex life.

Two extreme examples, created to make my point. But I think it helps me making it.

[moetheman]

A very good (and possibly polarising) post Merrix. I can certainly relate to the latter (but with the results of the former). So in effect worst of both currently. I'm hoping to be in the latter category after my revision with Eid. I have to agree that since the initial implant I also feel like I can't (or won't) do certain things. Squats is definitely one but also simple things like just playful wrestling with my brother-in-law. I always feel scared in case the reservoir will get damaged if he picks me up.

So just small aspects of life that are impacted by the implant. I really do hate the front pump placement too as I will personally never be comfortable in front of a stranger when the pump is quite obvious to see (well in my case anyway). I'm sure one can eventually get used to some of these things but I want better results if they're possible. I think the young guy and old guy distinction is quite important and I'm sure there are exceptions and one shouldn't generalise normally but I think your extreme examples do make the point well.