Blister from vibration

TLDR: Adding shaft vibration during vac hanging or extending increases the risk of a blister. Duh.

Well shoot.

I’ve used vibration a little with pumping, but with my set up it didn’t really seem to add anything so I haven’t continued. But it never caused me any problems.

Several guys have been reporting great elongation rates during hanging/extending after adding vibration along the shaft.

So tonight I tried it with my vacuum hanging set up with the pulley system under my desk, which is straight out hanging. I used a theragun on my shaft while hanging near the end of my workout, so on the higher end of the weight of the progression. Couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 minutes total.

And sure enough, when I took the vac cup off I had a glans blister. Big one, too.

I haven’t had one since I started using the water trick no matter how heavy I’ve gone, so it was definitely the vibration creating just enough movement to create a micro-envorionment of increased vacuum right at the tip of the cup.

I think other guys have had this issue, and for me, whatever benefit it offers isn’t worth the time off to heal up since it seems a pretty high percentage chance.

Kind of sucks, as I just got back from an 8 day decon during family vacation and I was eager to get going on some more intense elongation training. I’m going to try to train through with hydrocolloid patch, so I’ll report back about how that goes.

Was that part of the glans touching the tube? ie, a friction burn?

You were applying the Theragun to the side, and not rigged axially somehow?

It was a vacuum cap, not a tube. No heat. The theragun (massage gun) was pressed downward on the shaft to create a concave/convex fluctuation at that level of the shaft, resulting in short longitudinal variations in stress with the SO hanging position.

I think the short but rapid variations in force resulted in a high pressure focus of vacuum at the tip of the vacuum cap that isn’t present for more static stretching. That is the potential value of the vibration, short cycles of short elongation relaxation under strain, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk of a blister since they can be so derailing of PE and sex :(

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have a compression hanger you could try? Some of the Johnny-come-lately hangers are a lot narrower than a Bib Starter.

I do, I’ve got the Total man compression hanger. But I really hate compression hanging.

I’m actually vac hanging now with the water trick using a hydrocolloid patch on the popped blister. I took everything off and checked after about an hour and still totally covered and doing well, so I’m going to keep going with it. So I think the patch is the key to training through a blister recovery.

I’ll update if things go south again…

My main problem with the compression hangers is having to take them off so frequently to massage fresh blood in.

Soooo…

Healing was going nicely using the hydrocolloid patch and some micropore tape at the edges to keep the contoured edges of the patch against my glans skin. I was even able to use my vacuum elongation setup by putting a regular condom over it to keep the bandage setup apart from the water in my vac cup. Did this several times since I got the blister with no problem. So I was feeling pretty good about being able to keep training despite the healing blister bed.

I was even clamping and pumping with no issues.

Then today I was using my high tension ADS setup for my elongation training and it felt pretty uncomfortable at the glans for the whole time, so after about an hour I removed the setup and decided to take off the patch from the blister bed and it was oozing blood. It hadn’t been bleeding at all before this. So I think I’m going to have to take time off from vac elongation until it heals up completely.

One of the benefits of the hydrocolloid patch is that it keeps the bed moist without being wet. The flip side, I think, is the granulation tissue at the wound is more friable than it would be if I had used a different kind of bandage and just let it dry out a bit. But a dry bed can lead to cracking and bleeding, too. So in the end it is probably worth it to use the hydrocolloid, just because it eliminates all the pain of the exposed skin, keeps it clean and keeps the moisture balance perfect for scar-free healing. It just takes a little longer to heal up completely since the forming skin stays really soft rather than keratinizing right away.

I just need to be more patient. As usual…

I make rapid, measurable gains when vacuum hanging. But only until I get a blister, and then I lose all the non-cemented gains and have to start over again.

Yeah, maybe I’ll dust off the old compression hanger.

Ive been milking the tube and developed a slight callous on the dorsal side of the ridge of the glans.

No blister but I notice its sensitve. And i put a lot of aquafor on it in the tube.

After about 15 min i have to stop milking.

2 days on and 2 days off is a good pace.

So I ended up taking 9 days off from vacuum elongation to let the blister heal up. The hydrocolloid is amazing, but I’ve found that too much vacuum was prolonging the healing phase, as I’d find a little blood/serum under the patch every time I tried to hang or extend. So I ended up just counting the time off as decon break. Not what I wanted, but probably not a bad thing, either.

I’ve been clamping and doing gentle pumping each day and that has been fine.

I was able to restart vac hanging 2 days ago, and the sessions went fine. There is a little discomfort in the nearly completely healed blister bed, and I’ve noticed that feeling that tells me I need to condition the tissues a bit, but that is expected.

I have been hitting around 4% elongation with much less weight and shorter time, so the decon seems to have worked.

I lost about 3mm on my retroglandular BPFSL length (how I measure pre-session) but after 2 sessions it is creeping back. More interesting, I’ve also lost some BPEL, which is now consistently down to 8.25, from 8.4. So clearly not seemed gains yet.

But I’m going to rededicate myself to elongation training and I’m taking the little time off as a reset and hopefully I can shoot past my previous BPEL max.

I just received my Best ADS in the mail and I’m planning on doing a 2-3 hours of low tension ADS (between 2 and 3 pounds) after my elongation sessions using hanging or around the waist ADS while sitting at my desk, or around the waist of knee ADS while up and about or walking on my under desk treadmill.

Now that my girth is where I want it to be I’m hoping to get to 9 BPEL in the next 6-12 months and am focussing on that.