I try to get 6+ hours in a day, up to 8 or 9 if I can. Have bought the elastic belt so that I can get extra hours in when I’ve got to be out and about, still need to experiment with it though. I manage even a few hours without taking it off, but it’s pee breaks that makes me do it. Not sure it really matters if you have shorter or longer sets as long as you get the time in per day? I’ve read that it should be over 4 hours a day if possible, but I think I do find personally that when it gets up to 8 or more then after some days it really does start to hang well and I get a feeling of real progress - but at this point during my last cycle I made the mistake of overdoing it in terms of days without a break. I’d started the first couple of weeks really well but then had done 13 days in a row and after that I felt there was some rebound effect, like I’d overdone something.
About fluid build up, I haven’t had that. My glans is larger anyway so I suspect it fills the chamber and butts up against the plastic so it can’t expand more. Maybe try a smaller diaphragm, but I think maybe it’s due to the long set - so maybe an idea is to reduce to an hour each time and take 5 to 10 mins in between? Just as long as you get the hours in by the end of the day, I think this is more important. Another thing that occurs to me is that it could be something to do with how you enter the cap - maybe too quick and there is an air gap between the end of the glans and the diaphragm… What I do is attach the bulb and then pump out so that the diaphragm bulges outwards, this is the starting point. Then I reattach the bulb and squeeze air out and attach to the front top of the glans and slowly suck in about halfway, then I squeeze air out of the bulb again and at this point I get all the way in. I know it’s a good fit when the rear ridge of the glans pops inside the sluice which I can feel. At this point I squeeze air out of the bulb a third time and then squeeze the shaft to get blood expanded into the glans and I think I can feel it expand in the chamber a bit more. So like this the glans is totally against the diaphragm and against the plastic chamber… maybe this kind of thing can reduce fluid build up? Would be interested to hear other guys comments on that.
So for me, this time round I’m going in for the long haul with my routine which I re-started this week. I’m going to try something like 6 months where the plan is that I’m not going to be too worried if I only get 4 hours some days, but will try to keep something like 8 hours if possible - so the idea being to get lots of time in traction. And secondly trying to find the sweet spot - not too much force, not overdoing it - so for this I’m going to take a day off at least every week, and will keep the force less than the max of 1.1kg (maybe in the 600 to 900g range).
Start: 6" BPEL x 5" EG (mid)
Current: 7.5" BPEL x 5.98" EG (average distal/mid/base shaft)
Goal: 8" BPEL x 6.5" EG (whole shaft)