This site discusses phimosis in its specific forms of phimotic ring, frenulum breve, adhesions or skinbridges. During erection these conditions inhibit the relationship between foreskin and glans. This functionally restricts the erection, and thus has an effect on the sexuality. With our culture's attitudes on health care, it would be appropriate to encourage early prevention. Jan 2021 : Please read the new summary.

THE HOME PENILE SELF-SURGERY PROCEDURE I once chopped pieces of foreskin off my penis with a pair of cuticle scissors. Now that I've got your attention, I'll go back and tell the whole story. Apologies if it gets a little lengthy, but this yarn deserves to be spun well. BACKGROUND After I was circumcised as an infant, the wound was not taken care of with sufficient diligence, and it healed incorrectly. Portions of the raw edge of the remaining foreskin bonded to the glans, a little bit above the lower edge of the glans. This left series of "skin bridges", basically sections of foreskin which can't be retracted, because they are fused to the glans at one end and the shaft at the other. These varied in width from about 1/16" to 1/4", and were attached off and on over about 2/3 of the circumference. This was never a major problem. It was a long time before I even realized it was abnormal. Everything functioned properly, but there were a few minor problems with it which made me wish I could fix it. Mainly: 1.It was a cosmetic defect -- it didn't look good. 2.It was tough to keep clean under the bridges -- I had to swab it with a Q-tip now and then to knock down smegma buildup. 3.Some of the most sensitive parts of the glans were hidden under relatively insensitive chunks of foreskin, robbing me of the proper stimulation which was mine and every man's birthright. Over the past few years, I'd been thinking of getting it corrected, but there were problems. Doctors cost money, and I didn't have it, and student insurance sure wasn't gonna cover it. Plus, the thought of some strange doctor chopping at my peepeehead gives me chills. Now, all a doctor would do is sterilize it, numb it, cut it and bandage it. "Hell, maybe I can do that!", I thought. The problem was how to kill the pain. I experimented with cutting myself (with an x-acto knife), but seeing as it always hurt like hell before I even cut anything, I never went through with it. Recently, I came back and studied the situation. Again, the problem with the self- surgery approach was dealing with pain. There had to be some way of numbing the area, but how? One winter day, it hit me. If cold can make fingers go numb, then cold can also make a ManTool[tm] go numb. With this in mind, I pioneered a the "home penile self-surgery procedure". SURGERY KIT: Cuticle scissors (1 pair) Rubbing alcohol (1 bottle) Antibiotic ointment (1 tube) Anti-bacterial soap (1 bottle) Gauze pads (lots, various sizes) Ice cubes (iodine added to water for sterility) Clean Washcloth (freshly laundered with lots'o bleach) Well-lit work area (the kitchen table) PROCEDURE: Wipe down work area with alcohol. Clean penis with soap and water, then with alcohol. Wash hands thoroughly. Soak scissors in alcohol. Holding the ice cube with the washcloth (to prevent your fingers from going numb), apply the ice cube to the target area. Hold for 5 to 10 minutes, until area is numb. Using the cuticle scissors, sever the skin bridge as closely as possible to its connection with the glans. Then sever the foreskin end of the bridge in such a location as to leave an even edge on the foreskin. Use gauze pads and direct pressure to stop the bleeding, then apply antibiotic ointment and bandage. THE OPERATIONS: Though the operations are not painful if done correctly, the healing process is a real pain in the ass. It also takes a certain state of mind to be able to cut your own flesh. I would kind of put myself into robo-man zombie mode for the operations, in that I never dwelled on what I was doing, I just mechanically plodded through all the steps without thinking about how totally gross it was. Since the ice cube could only numb a small portion of the penis, and since I could only tolerate so much trauma to my dick in one session, it took 6 separate operations, spread out over a two week period, to cut/remove all of the skin bridges. Operation #1 (Day 1) The test cut. I chose a small thin skin bridge, about 1/16" across. I held the ice cube on for 5 minutes. The ice caused a peculiar kind of "cold ache", but it wasn't that bad. I gingerly made the cuts, and sliced through with no pain at all. There was some minor bleeding, but because of the speed at which I worked, I had finished and had the gauze on it before the wound had any chance to bleed significantly. After about 10 minutes the bleeding was stopped and I bandaged it up, no problem at all. Only a tiny little speck of flesh had been removed, rather unimpressive looking. Operation #2 (Day 3) Operation #1 turned out so well, I decided to go for big game this time. The target was the mother of all skin bridges, about 1/4" across and very thick and meaty. Again, I made the preparations and applied ice for 5 minutes. I made the first cut along the glans, and was surprised at how much I had to bear down on the scissors. This skin was surprisingly tough. I finished that cut, and then turned my attention to the cut on the foreskin side. Wanting to get it done quickly, I decided that two large, powerful snips should do the job. I bore down and made the first cut, and realized with a shock that IT HURT LIKE HELL. Well, it turns out that due to the thickness of the skin bridge on that end, the cold hadn't penetrated deeply enough, and it hadn't gone numb. So, I was left with a problem. I had a half severed bit of foreskin hanging off me, and no anaesthetic. My only recourse was to finish the cut. I thought, "Shit. This will hurt.". So I lined up the scissors, closed my eyes, and as quickly and powerfully as I could, I made the snip. My prediction was correct; it did hurt (don't you hate when you're right about things like that?). I managed to avoid shouting out, instead opting for a few simple gasps and whimpers. I resolved to hold the ice on for much longer in future operations. Being that this was a bigger cut than the first, it bled much more profusely. It took about 20 minutes of direct pressure and a lot of gauze until I could staunch the main flow. Even then it kept oozing blood for a few hours. I spent the rest of the evening with nothing on below the waist, sitting in front of the TV with a few brews (this became standard procedure for all forthcoming operations). Any motion tended to make it break open and bleed again, so I moved around very little. I was functioning (that is, walking) almost normally again by the next day, but it took about 5 days before this one completely stopped oozing blood. As I gingerly hobbled back into the kitchen for another brew, I spotted IT, the severed hunk-o-foreskin that I had left on the table. It was of fairly good size, about 1/2" by 1/4" and maybe as thick as a piece of bacon. Suddenly, strange thoughts entered my skull, and a raging mental battle between good and evil ensued. EVIL: "Eat the foreskin." GOOD: "Don't do it!! That's gross!!" EVIL: "Eat the foreskin." GOOD: "Stop thinking about it!!" EVIL: "You know what you must do. Eat it. It is your destiny." GOOD: "But that's cannibalism!" EVIL: "So what?" GOOD: "Cannibalism is shunned for a reason! It spreads diseases!" EVIL: "Look dipshit. It's your own fucking flesh. Any diseases in there, you already got." GOOD: "But it's SELF-cannibalism!" EVIL: "So is chewing on the piece of skin you bit off your fingertip. BFD." GOOD: "But this is weird, deranged and perverted!" EVIL: "Exactly" GOOD: (Hauls its sorry whupped ass away and shuts up) So, I ate it. Turns out it was very tough and chewy, kind of like biting a little piece of rubber. I chewed for about 5 minutes, but didn't make any progress on breaking it down, so I swallowed it. It had a little bit of blood flavor at first, but after that it had no flavor at all; rather disappointing in that respect. Maybe I should have cooked it. Operation #3 (Day 10) A medium sized cut. I held the ice cube on much longer (10 minutes instead of 5), so there was no problem with pain. Not nearly as much bleeding, but still a respectable amount. A word about erections: they were a bad thing. Any hard-on would tear the wounds open and start them bleeding again. This would be a problem for about 3 or 4 days until the wounds had healed sufficiently. Basically, I had to spend a long, long time without even thinking a nasty thought. Of course, when I was asleep I had no control over the process, which would always result in me waking up with a dick that hurt and bloody bandages. I was really lovin' life at moments like these. Operation #4 (Day 12) Another medium sized cut, but with the added bonus of having a small vein (about 1 mm in diameter) running through the skin bridge. Now, the blood supply for the penis mainly runs through blood vessels buried deep inside. When you get down the the small vessels, the circulatory system becomes more of a spiderweb, with redundant paths going to every point. So I knew it wasn't actually dangerous to cut it, but it was still a kind of psychological obstacle. I expected this one to be a heavy bleeder, and I wasn't disappointed. It took about a full hour of direct pressure to get the severed ends of the vein to close up. Otherwise, not too much of a problem. Operation #5 (Day 14) I was planning on more time to let the others heal, but due to changes in the way skin tension was being applied to the remaining bridges (because I'd cut some others away), one small bridge was getting a lot of stress and starting to hurt. So I chopped it quick and easy, no real problems. Operation #6 (Day 15) The problem with operation #5 was that it just transferred the stress to the next bridge down the line. So even though I had about 3/4" of flesh left to cut, I resolved to do it all at once in one last cutting frenzy. Due to the size of the operation, it took a while to complete (maybe 1 minute total), which gave the blood a chance to flow. I had to stop a few times and wipe away blood so I could see what I was doing. Strangely, this didn't bother me at all. It seemed perfectly normal that I should be wiping up copious amounts of blood flowing from my bleeding pecker which I had sliced open myself. Actually, it seemed kind of cool at the time, which led me to speculate at the time that I had gone insane, which I also thought was pretty cool. Anyway, except for the excess blood which had dripped on to the chair, it went quite well. The only thing that really grossed me out was when I noticed I had blood all over my hands. If any psychoanalysts want to analyze that tidbit for me, feel free, though I really don't care. The wounds are now completely healed, and the results are good. Mainly: 1.There are no scars to speak of, just a few bumps on the glans. This is because I didn't trim the flesh quite close enough in a few spots. They kind of resembling little warts. I thought about going back and trimming them off, but I kind of like 'em now. After all, it's not everyone who has the privilege of appearing to have warts, without actually being diseased. 2.Without the skin tension holdin things back, total dick length has increased by 1/4". (Of course I've measured the length of my dick. Like you haven't?) 3.It's a great topic for dinnertime conversation. Women generally seem to find it quite interesting. Men generally turn kind of pale. With my newfound surgical skills, I've been contemplating a few more self-surgical procedures. You know, mole removal, wart removal, nose jobs, the whole vista of cosmetic surgery. I'll need some help for that mole on my back, which means training an assistant. Ah, the future looks interesting indeed Greg Bernath gbernath-at-oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu The above page was originally a newsgroup article. (Greg gave me personally his permission to print It was sent to me privately by Peter S. who says: Now that you've read it, I'll give a couple of comments. 1. Have you come across guys with skin bridges? I've come across a couple, and one with them nearly all the way round like our guy above, and it looks a bit like I was when I had adhesions as a small kid. Skin Bridges are another reason for not circumcising kids at birth, but waiting till later on. 2. The whole essay reminds me of what I did and how I felt when I did my own operation. There were just two important differences: (a) I used a fine pair of surgical scissors, which were sharpened to razor-sharpness. As a result, my cuts were virtually painless and clean and bled very little, and needed very little force, and healed easily. Cuticle scissors are hopeless, and I'm sure that it's because he used them that he got so much pain. (b) I didn't use any ice. Not necessary, with so little pain. 3. Erections. Since our friend was already circumcised, I guess he would have trouble. With me, since the job I did myself was fairly loose, I didn't. But I sympathise, because when I had my radical op., it was a different matter, and erections hurt like hell for a few days. I remember the first couple of nights after the op waking in the night with a hard on and .a great pain, and being scared stiff that the stitches would break, and lying there in bed pulling forward on the shaft to try to relieve the tension on the tightly-stretched skin. In fact, the stitches held and unlike our friend, there was never any blood. After the dressing was off, though, (only two days after) I put strips of non-stretch plaster across the wound to stop it stretching just where it was healing., and I only felt it safe to leave these off after two weeks Peter S. Dec 96 see also SkinBridges