3 year anniversary update

On January 2, 2001 I started pumping. At that point, I had pretty serious ED. I could get it up maybe 2 out of 10 tries and those events didn’t sustain themselves for very long. I was having very few nocturnal erections. I had achieved Poster Boy status as to Performance Anxiety and had not seen a urologist yet. The more you worry, the more things don’t work.

I did a whole lot of research on the net about pumping before I bought a pump. There is some truly frightening stuff published out there, much of that is scare tactics and not applicable to anyone who uses a pump sensibly. I followed the program I later outlined in Pumping 101, very gradually conditioning my penile tissues to the vacuum. At that time the words “jelk” and the term “PE” were not even in my vocabulary. I was only determined to try to correct my ED, if I could.

The first improvement I noticed came about two or three months into pumping. I began to wake up to morning wood occasionally; then began to wake during the night to find that I was hard. (Wow!) Also, veins and arteries that were never apparent on my shaft were becoming prominent. At about the fifth month, my cock looked and felt longer. I knew my starting size because I had had to measure to order my cylinder. I measured again. Incredibly, at least to me then, I had gained an inch in length. This was even better in some ways than starting to get nocturnal erections again.

Between beginning to pump and the shaft gain event, I finally got up the nerve to see a urologist about my ED. This was a “no easy” process. I was highly nervous about admitting, even to a doctor, that I had ED. The urologist I chose turned out to have very poor social skills; he was pompous, arrogant. Basically I got a quick intake, a pat on the back, a script for Viagra, and no instructions on using it to its best advantage. But the V. did work well with some experimentation.

After the first gain I got really enthusiastic about gaining more and discovered the old PE Forums, then Thunder’s. It was clear to me that at Thunder’s the men seemed much more interested in learning how gains happen than in just reporting and crowing about them and that there was a general civility and good support here, member to member, to a degree I had not found elsewhere. I decided to hang out here.

With the practical side of my ED resolved with the help of Viagra and a much-improved penile vascular system thanks to pumping, I shed my Performance Anxiety Poster Boy status and was able to really concentrate on getting gains. I found that combining vacuum pumping with manual exercises made a significant difference. Through feedback from other members I realized that remaining in the cylinder for longer and longer periods of time was not the key to permanent penile gains. Shorter sessions at moderate pressures interspersed with manual exercises were far more productive, not only for me but for others here.

I turned out to be a relatively fast gainer. At my peak of gain, I was on average 8.40 length, 6.5 girth. I wanted girth, but after I got that wide I realized that for me, with my particular sexual proclivities, 6.5 was a bit too much.

Last spring I “semi-retired” and started a maintenance program, a very haphazard one. I kept the girth but by early fall had dropped back to maybe 7.8 on length. I had in my head I wanted to be 8 length so I upped the maintenance schedule to something more reasonable, with no girth work whatsoever. Now, in January, I’m stable at 8 x 6 and this looks and feels just right for my sexual purposes and my frame, 6’, large, 185 lbs.

The degree of my ED is much reduced from what it was 3 years ago. I never worry now about getting and staying hard (I do use vasodilators and will probably for the rest of my life). I have real good flaccid hang; this took longer than anything else to achieve, about 2 years. There is no question that I have managed to restore to an excellent degree what was back then a compromised penile vascular system. It’s a very rare day that I don’t wake with a hard-on. Sex is way better and I’m having more of it than I did, even pre-ED. I am 63, and a very happy camper now, thanks to all that prolonged and, frankly, sometimes boring work.

Stick to your programs, guys. The time passes quickly and the rewards at the end are worth every minute spent.

Thanks avocet8, for that VERY inspiring story.

avocet8,

A very inspiring story with an awesome outcome. To be 63 and packing 8x6 that works like a 30 year old, well, that is something special. I always talk about how this has been a fountain of youth for me, I am now 52, but you really have something to crow about and I think it is just fantastic.

Thanks again for the inspiration, and for hanging around to pass on your knowledge.

Thanks avocet 8…and happy anniversary!

I sure don’t know what lies ahead for me in three years, but wherever I am, hopefully I’m standing there with a nice big basket and a smile.

Congratulations, Avocet8!

You’re a great inspiration to me, and I’ve learnt a lot from reading
pumping101 and other things you’ve written in these forums.

I’ll soon be posting my one- year anniversary story.
I’m really looking forward to my maintenance- days, but I’ve got some serious work ahead first.

Take care!

Avocet,

You continue to be a huge inspiration to me, and I am sure to legions of pumpers. Congratulations and thank you for sharing this wonderful anniversary recollection.

Gee Av….that sure pumped me up. (Great post!)

Great summary post, Avocet8. You and I have same starting dates for pumping (Jan. 2001), and, like for you, pumping has been a primary PE activity for me and produced substantial gains in both length and girth in combination with jelqing, squeezes, etc. Thanks for sharing your story. It’s a great inspiration for others.

Peforeal

Avocet, you are one of my favorite posters here. I’m glad PE has worked so well for you, and that you continue to stick around to help others even though you’ve “gotten yours” and are semi-retired.

Thanks for all you do.

Avocet, we haven’t talked much, I wish we would’ve talked more… You da man! :cool:

I second that Avocet, congratulations and Happy Anniversary!!!

Avocet, I know most of your posts are in the Pumper’s Forum,
but if you would be so kind, could you tell us all what you have found to be the best combination of time and pressure when pumping, for length gains.

Also, what starting size were you and do you attribute pumping to most of your girth gains?

I feel like I’m interviewing a star athlete:D

Nice boots.

Congrats avocet. And a whole bag of thanks for all of your help here.

Thanks, guys. You make me blush. And even in the toes of my shiny, new boots (T).

I do believe now from my experience of laying off PE for fairly long periods, or becoming very, very lazy about PE that some of us just don’t keep all our gains. The old and very tired question of “Are gains permanent?” I remember from reading in other sections here of men have checked in after quitting altogether and reported no loss of size. Some can apparently get away with no “maintenance” at all but others, like me, need to continue to keep up some active, even if nonchalant, exercises.

EZ Rider asked about starting size and routine. In a quirky attempt to steer everybody toward Size’s Data Site (link at the bottom of most pages here) I purposefully left that out. That area is due to be upgraded soon I hear but for now the routine section there doesn’t always record posts.

So. I started out at 6 x 5.75. Early on in pumping I worked up to three or four 20 min. pumps per session at about 5 hg. But I got my best gains when I cut the time down to three or four 6 - 8 minute pumps, doing wet jelks and Uli’s between sets. These manual exercises seldom took longer than three or four minutes between the pump sets. I varied my routines a lot, too many times to record here for you; I confess I did that mostly out of boredom.

Point is, it is stick-to-itivness that brings gains. Stay with the program even if it becomes tiresome. Good old SS4 has always been an inspiration to me. No gains in a whole year and yet he stayed with it and kept helping others?? That’s perseverance. And it seems to have paid off for him, too, in spite of one of the longer plateaus on record here!

Avocet:

Great story — and thanks for the regular excellent advice. I’m beginning to think that there must be significant physiological differences between slow and fast gainers. As a slow gainer, I know it’s not just the lack of effort, but I’m taking to heart your encouraging thought that persistence will pay off.

Avo,

We appreciate your leadership and feedback on pumping. Unfortunately, us pumpers are behind the power curve relative to the information available on this site and elsewhere about other PE techniques. But without you, PE learner, and a couple others, we’d be completely in the dark.

Tally