Dr. Kramer, Baltimore

[RichardTheFrog]

If I get this done, which I probably will, it sounds like Dr. Kramer is a very good doctor to go with.

Can I hear from other patients of his?

Especially about potential loss of erectile length?

[ValPinto]

If you read and do some digging you'll find he's best in the world level, probably 300 of his surgical videos online. Maybe a few others almost as good surgically but probably no one else the whole package in terms of likeability, etc. Only downside maybe is he's in baltimore which may not be convenient or as wonderful a vacation spot at new york city or LA (didn't baltimore have some riots recently?) otherwise he's 1 in a million, watch his hands in the videos

[dg_moore]

No problems in Baltimore, at least not in the area of UMMC. You won't find a better surgeon or more approachable doctor than Andrew Kramer - I'm still in touch with him 9 years after my procedure. He remains easily available for all of his patients.

[jonbaldbg]

I did a ton of research and chose Dr. Kramer. I have been his biggest fan and have sung his praises. His videos are amazing, He is so responsive to your needs and questions both before and after the procedure. I cannot imagine any other doctor spending as much time on E-mail with me as he has and he answers quickly and extensively with explanations. His bedside manner and caring are second to none and he does a high volume of implants. He has called me and he came to my hotel room before I left town to check on me.

Results of my procedure:

1. Cylinders are fully inserted halfway into the glans as it should be.
2. I had no scrotal swelling or hematoma. Some guys swell up like grapefruits.
3. My pump ended up too high and to the left. He felt like that wouldn't be a problem and explained it was a trade off for not using RTEs on me. It is preferable to get a full cylinder without RTEs if you can, but that left my pump and deflate button high.
4. He arranged for me to have my 4 weeks follow up visit and activation with a Dr. he trusted near my home, Dr. Knoll in Nashville. While Knoll is pubic and Kramer is scrotal, Knoll is high volume and has done more procedures than Kramer (he's 20 years older). But, Dr. Kramer felt like he could really trust Knoll and he arranged my visit.
5. Dr. Knoll is going to do a revision on me to get the pump low in the scrotum and centered. The two have talked and agree on how the procedure is to be done. This will keep me from having fly back to Baltimore and so forth. I'm only one hour from Nashville.
6. He modeled and fixed my Peyronies. See video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4m3LFmqAIY
7. Finally, the model that Dr. Kramer is convinced he implanted is not what is on my wallet card. We're not sure where the mix-up happened but he is convinced he implanted me with the LGX as planned. I doubt we'll ever know how this happened but perhaps AMC packaged the wrong card or the nurses got my card confused with someone else's. Perhaps I really do have a different model. We don't know for sure.

You will find it is almost unanimous on this board that Dr. Kramer is one of the top surgeons in the world. But, you have to decide.

Everything did not work out exactly perfect on my surgery and I'm not sure exactly why, but the Dr. Kramer has stood beside me through this whole thing and worked to correct my problem.

Finally, his office promised me no loss in length. He paid special attention to this just like anything else I requested. I won't know about my length until the 6-month point because that is how long it takes to regain length. The AMS LGX is supposed to provide and additional 20% in length after a year. That remains to be seen. I will let you judge the length. Here is a before and after picture.

Before:

20160820_093432 resized.jpg (53.14 KiB) Viewed 3604 times

After (today at less than 2 months)

20161204_071645.jpg (13.55 KiB) Viewed 3604 times

20161204_071339.jpg (54.57 KiB) Viewed 3604 times

[merrix]

I started to read and post on Franktalk about a year ago. During a year, I guess Kramer and some other high-volume guys like Eid and Perito probably do around 200-300 implants. I haven't bothered trying to research how many of them actually post something on Frantalk, but I think that out of these three, who all do roughly as many implants each, there are fare more Kramer patients posting here than Eid or Periro patients. That probably means something, but I don't know what. Could be that dissatisfied men, or at least men who have the doubt whether all is ok with their implant and want to compare to others to make sure theirs is ok, come here more often. Or could be that the happy ones with great outcomes come here more often to tell the world of their success. Of course, there will be plenty of both categories here, but as a general principle, If I had to guess which of these categories is over represented, I'd guess that you are more likely to hang out on a forum like this if you're concerned or dissatisfied.
One reason for more Kramer patients being on FT than other high-volume surgeon's patients could be that Kramer is just such a nice guy, that his patients want to promote him for that reason.

Anyway, trying to objectively assess his greatness, here is an attempt. It is just one post in the debate, and nobody will ever come to the conclusion on who is the best.

During one year (i.e. the year I have been reading and posting on FT), how many implants does Kramer do? Let us say 250.
How many of these did find their way to FT and tell their story during the last 12 months? Haven't done the research, but let me estimate 15 Kramer implant patients have told their story on FT during the last 12 months.
How many have had bad results? Again, I haven't done the research, but I know two for sure. And then maybe I forgot a couple, I don't know.
But let's just use the two ones that for a fact got shitty results, that means that on FT, 2 out of 15 got really bad results, which is 13%.
How a guy who botches 13% of his patients here on this board over the last 12 months can have this glorified, super-hero, can-do-no-wrong status is beyond my understanding.
Maybe I am missing something here, if so, please let me know where the logic fails in my reasoning.
But please don't give me any subjective crap as in 'he is the best because I am happy with my results and he answers my emails'. Just explain to me where my numbers go wrong. I am talking about the bigger picture here, not individual cases.

My answer to my own question is that Kramer is probably good. He would have to have a huge lack of talent not to be good considering that he does more implants than almost all other doctors out there. But that's it. There are probably others being as good and some probably better. He is not playing in any kind of league of his own. If he did, we wouldn't have seen at least two botched implants from him on FT during the last year. So get me right. I am not saying he's crap. I'm saying his reputation seems a bit hyped compared to what we actually see coming out result wise from his clinic.

But his strengths is probably outside the surgery room. He seems to be a genuinely nice (or extremely smart business promoting) man. And that means even guys who got shitty results from him do never really take a rap on him here on FT. Compare that to a doc who not only fails the surgery, but also acts arrogant and ruthless, he will get punished here on FT.

Being a businessman myself, I am quite fascinated by Kramer. He has a very good skill of promoting his name. There is no doubt that almost all of his patients here on FT hails him like god's gift to impotent penises (well, poor analogy maybe, since that same god if he existed could scrap ED easily himself rather than sending us a doc to fix it...). The man is a genius in that sense and I respect him for that.

Personally, even though I of course prefer a nice doc over an asshole, I'd any time have an asshole of a doc giving me great results than the nicest guy on the planet giving me a poor outcome.

[movingon]

Dr Kramer did my implant on November 23, so far I'm delighted. I just posted a detailed update on Movingon's Journey. The most important advice I can give you is that if you need an implant, don't wait. Find the very best doctor you can and get it done.

[stiffupperlip]

I had surgery with Dr. Kramer about six weeks ago. So far everything is going great. It's not that he's such a nice guy. It's that he doesn't abandon his patients after the surgery unlike some other doctors. The guy emailed me back on Thanksgiving. He didn't even have to. I'd sent him a email over nothing major expecting a reply in a few days. He might be a savvy business man but I get the sense that he cares about his patients. Whether that's true or not I don't know. But if it isn't he's damn good at faking it.

He let me decide which brand I wanted to use. He told the pros and cons of each and never did the hard sale on either one. I ended up going with the Titan - 22cm with no RTE's. So I'm happy about that. He also explained why he used to do more Titan's and now does more AMS. I don't recall exactly what he said but I know he mentioned the AMS models were more natural in the flaccid state. Personally I could care less about the flaccid state. I got this thing for fucking.

From what I see on this board I'm sure Dr. Eid is a fantastic and personable surgeon also. But I'm also sure he has some patients that are 'botched". There's no way any surgeon in going to bat 100%.

And Merrix, I'm glad you had a great result and I'm glad that put so much detail and thought into your journal and every post you make.

[alibaba]

Following merrix's analysis, there was 1 Eid dissatisfaction that I recall posted in the past year also. I suspect the number of dissatisfied people who show up on FT to complain are a much higher percentage than the number of people who are satisfied and post or much higher still the number who are happy and never post. When compared to either Kramer or Eid, there are many more patients of other doctors just plain pissed off about the outcome when compared to appreciative posts of the same doctor. I can think of a couple that the pissed vs happy are running 50% or worse. Given those comparables, it is clear. Eid cares about his patient and tries. Kramer also cares about his patient and tries. Beyond these two, Kramer goes beyond and shows his work. That would put him ahead of 40 doctors any day of the week. Eid and Kramer both return calls. That puts them at the top of the list. Perito never returned my 2 calls. Perito only does infrapubic. There have been as many complaints as praises, again 50/50 with infrapubic. As time goes on and there are more above the dick slashers putting in implants the infrapubic complaints are mounting fast so that alone would make me ditch Perito, Knoll and the guy in TX ( forget his name). Karpman in El Camino California is said to have the bedside manner of Kramer. That has value. An asshole that does good work that you cannot talk too can be an issue if issues arise. If you have no issue, no problem. Not like you are going to become beer swilling chums over an implant. If the asshole does good work and you never need him again, great. If you have problems then where are you? I know I appear biased. I had infrapubic and hate it for the same reason anyone else who dislikes their infrapubic dislikes theirs. I dislike my doctor. I asked prior to surgery about the tubing infrapubic because I had read of complaints before. he said he buries the tubing deep where you will never find it. That again was a lie. He told me he will not discuss loss of length. Not good and should have been a warning sign to buy the first ticket available home. As far as follow-up,, he does not do that either. You are assigned a person you have never seen or heard of. When there were issues that required a call in, his staff treated you like a black boy at a Klan meeting. Had someone told me all this prior, I probably would still be looking for an implant surgeon. In the last year most posts have been fairly clear on their opinion of their doctors. Study, use the search, and follow what feels right to you. Our opinions do not matter. They may be biased. They might be the implant rep drumming up business for his client.Who knows? Meet your doc, ask questions, see if it feels right. If you are not one with limited options for docs then it will be easy. Cheers. Damn, I went on a rant and wrote another book..........

[jonbaldbg]

I had surgery with Dr. Kramer about six weeks ago. So far everything is going great. It's not that he's such a nice guy. It's that he doesn't abandon his patients after the surgery unlike some other doctors. The guy emailed me back on Thanksgiving. He didn't even have to. I'd sent him a email over nothing major expecting a reply in a few days. He might be a savvy business man but I get the sense that he cares about his patients. Whether that's true or not I don't know. But if it isn't he's damn good at faking it.

He let me decide which brand I wanted to use. He told the pros and cons of each and never did the hard sale on either one. I ended up going with the Titan - 22cm with no RTE's. So I'm happy about that. He also explained why he used to do more Titan's and now does more AMS. I don't recall exactly what he said but I know he mentioned the AMS models were more natural in the flaccid state. Personally, I could care less about the flaccid state. I got this thing for fucking.

From what I see on this board I'm sure Dr. Eid is a fantastic and personable surgeon also. But I'm also sure he has some patients that are 'botched". There's no way any surgeon in going to bat 100%.

And Merrix, I'm glad you had a great result and I'm glad that put so much detail and thought into your journal and every post you make.

My best explanation is what you said: "No one is going to bat 100%." Dr. Kramer does truly care about his patients, and he works harder at that than any doctor I've ever met. I have read somewhere on this board that Eid has botched. I'm not prepared to say Kramer "botched" me. Yes, I'm having to have my pump and some tubing relocated, but other parts of the surgery went very well such as proper cylinder placement and absolutely no scrotal swelling. I wish mine had been perfect from the get-go but I don't think that is always possible in the world of surgery. Am I wrong? Who knows I may develop other problems as I go along. I am experiencing pain in the glans where the cylinder tips are. I have only started feeling that since I started regular cycling so I'm assuming the cylinder tips are pressing into it and that this is a normal part of stretching/healing. I do plan to ask the docs about this as well as get input from others here.

[merrix]

jonbaldbg,
If I were you, I'd take the tip pain very seriously. The last thing you want is erosion. Then you're in real trouble.
Hold off on the cycling for a while. A week or a few days without inflating is not going to have any impact whatsoever on your length a year from now on. But it might save you a lot of trouble.
When starting again, go soft. Never push it beyond level of discomfort. Pain is a signal worth listening to.
That's what I would have done. Do what you think is right.