AndyJ's stricture and scarring rehab

After around eight hours after the 7mm plug fell out, I got the 7.5mm one in. And *that* fell out three hours later, so I stepped up to 8mm, and then 8.3mm when I got up during the night. The 8.3 came out when I got up and was having breakfast.

The first few times I removed a plug, the meatus snapped back to 5.5mm and I had to use a pointed rubber sound to painfully open it up to take a 6mm starter plug and work my way back up step by step. Now I can start with a 7. And it used to take a day to day and a half to step up a size; now it’s just a few hours. And when a plug comes out, I can wait eight hours or more and re-insert the same plug, or in this last case, the next-larger one. That’s a big deal; it indicates the meatus is getting looser at both permanent and temporary stretches.

Also, after a plug comes out I have a normal stream for a while, which indicates there’s no permanent damage to the meatus from the infection. Or at least, no damage that’s not correctable by stretching it back into the correct shape with a plug.

Cheap stainless steel eBay plugs come in 1mm steps. I bought extras and spun them on a wire against the sander to sand them down to in-between sizes; 1/2mm steps on the smaller ones, 1/3mm on the larger ones. I find stretching up to larger sizes to be uncomfortable to painful, so there’s no reason to take bigger steps than I have to.

Urethra stuff seems to squick a lot of people out, but being able to hit the toilet without spraying my shoes, pants, floor, walls, etc. is a big deal for me. The scars, slow-healing wounds, pain from stretching the scars, and the severe erectile dysfunction were all downers, but not being able to stand up and take a piss like a man was the worst of all of it. And no, sitting down isn’t the answer; it just means I spray my thighs and balls instead of my pants and the floor.

I’m now fully confident that once I get a semi-permanent stretch out into the “normal” range - 8.5 to 9.5mm - I won’t have any more problems. If it’s not permanent, “maintenance stretching” is no big deal; I’ve come to enjoy the weight of the plug, and my dick feels odd when it’s not there…

As an aside, the urinary sphincter is way up inside, at the bottom of the bladder. Even if you’re a “grower” there’s still several inches of urethra, a lot more if you’re a shower. That’s why standard sounds are ten inches long. The meatus (“pee slit”) stays closed unless urine is passing through. It’s supposed to be soft and flexible. Just behind the meatus there’s a fibrous ring. Either or both can shrink if you have an infection, get kicked in the crotch, etc. Sometimes it just happens, statistically way more often for circumcised men. And sometimes “strictures” or tight spots form within the urethra. So when you pee, and the sphincter at the bladder closes, you wind up with a urethra full of urine, and sometimes even stroking down the underside won’t milk all of it out, and you wind up spotting your clothing with urine. I’d had that problem for a couple of decades before all this started…

I had a couple of minor strictures in the urethra that I broke up with flexible sound. So when I’m wearing a hollow plug, it’s a straight shot from the bladder out. I never had any “weak stream” problems before, but near the end it would start and stop, and then I’d dribble. With the plug, I just relax and “sploosh!” my bladder is empty, at least with the larger 4mm-bore plugs. With the smaller ones there’s some back pressure, but I pee like a laser and when it stops, it stops.

I don’t have the full-urethra dribble problem now, but I still had some leakage; instead of the “can’t pee” problem some guys in my age group get, I had the “can’t quite close the faucet” problem. It turns out Kegeling works like gangbusters for that. As in, it was noticeably better after just a couple of days. You seldom get that kind of return on exercise!

So, with the penis work I’ve been doing the last few months, I thought I’d go for a purely cosmetic thing, just a nice shiny stainless steel ball ring. And ran into a problem…

I’d had balls that swung low enough my wife used to complain about getting slapped with them when we had sex, but lately I’d kinda-sorta noticed my scrotum was pulled up tight. *Way* tight. With my balls fully retracted up into my body. And not long ago I realized my scrotum never relaxes, even with hot water or a heating pad. The scrotum also has some scars from the infection, but apparently it has lost elasticity too.

The Froehle tube I bought a few months ago is topologically a “full package” tube and gave me a little temporary ball hang after a pump… but it’s a penis tube, and about 20 minutes is all I can do without getting a donut, which I don’t want.

My scrotum is *really* tight; more than 1-1/2” or so of vacuum is actually painful. Once I was able to pump my balls down far enough to feel them, I noticed they’re a lot smaller than they used to be. WTF. Well, I’ll deal with that after I get some hang.

I got almost six hours of pumping done over the weekend, in sessions ranging from 15 minutes to an hour and a half. One of the more serious scars on the right side of the scrotum doesn’t much like being stretched, and an hour and a half was the longest I was willing to put up with the pain. It’s not *bad* pain, it hurts just enough to be annoying. So I’m taking it slow and easy at 1” Hg and I figure the scar will stretch eventually.

A lot of official-looking medical sites claim that scars won’t stretch, which I know for a fact is untrue, as I have aquired quite a collection of them over the years, and some have stretched a lot. But they don’t stretch *easily.*

Interestingly, I’m showing substantial temporary gains after less than six hours; several inches of hang that last half a day, even after my modest sessions. Driving a stick shift car was… interesting. Of course, I’m not actually stretching anything, I’m just restoring what I once had, but I’m very pleased it is going so quickly. I might even go for a little extra later. I’ve read enough forum threads to know that would be a long term project, but that’s no problem.

I’m using a spare 2-1/2” tube that came with an electric penis pump from eBay. The tube is way too big for my shaft, but it’s just right for my balls. I used some Shapelock plastic to radius the entry some more, which took the opening down to a little under 2 inches. My balls slip right around the radius without any trouble.

The original plan was to cut the tube off shorter, since it’s 9” long and I thought it would be awkward. But it doesn’t stick out at an angle; I clamp it between my thighs when I turn over on my side, and it’s no problem at all. So I’m going to leave it alone for now.

I’ve been keeping a detailed log of my activities since I started in mid-July. This morning I added up my totals so far:

penis pumping: 31.5 hours (generally 1/2 to 3/4” Hg, to stretch the scar ring)

ball pumping: 12.25 hours (half of that over the last weekend, though)

extender: 8 hours (Size Doctor, mostly in “ADS” configuration)

red light therapy: 0.5 hours (just started last night)

plugging: 750 hours (that’s a 31 days, a full month out of the last four)

Not a whole lot of time for four months, but most of that time was spent waiting to heal up after tearing or abrading the delicate new skin or stiff scar tissue; each injury takes weeks to heal up enough to resume activity.

I read about “red light therapy” on a forum, read a couple of the papers linked off nih.gov, noted that most medical insurance companies now have payment codes for the procedure, and bought a lamp with the wavelengths recommended in the papers - 660nm and 850nm. Which also happen to be the most-common wavelengths for infrared LEDs, and among the preferred range for “plant grow lights.” Duuuude…

One of the claims of red light therapy is that it helps reduce scarring. Therefore, I’m in… looking on eBay I found four basic types; handheld units up to a dozen watts, bulbs up to 54 watts, book-sized panels up to 250 watts, and big panels intended for ceiling mounts for grow operations.

The 54 watt bulb seemed to be the most useful thing, so I bought one of those, and an articulated “architect lamp” I could attach to a nearby bookshelf. I had to buy another extension cord, and with one thing and another, finally got it all hooked up on Sunday night. Since then I’ve managed maybe eight hours with the lamp a few inches away from my package.

The 54W bulb is warm but not hot to the touch, so there’s no worry about burning something if I adjust it too low. There’s only a barely detectable warmth from the two IR wavelengths. I’ve been watching for “sunburn”, but haven’t detected any. I’ve been using it in the mornings and evenings during PE sessions, and if I lay down to take a nap, and any time I can grab ten minutes or so. Sessions average 20 minutes, with 10 being the shortest and 50 being the longest. Fortunately I normally read fiction while laying down, and since I got the fancy 10” tablet I can read Thunder’s too.

TL;DR: I have had very noticeable improvement; I don’t have any scabs at the moment, and the scar is stretchy and flexible.

Caveat: I can’t prove it’s due to Red Light Therapy. Over the months I’ve been dealing with wound healing and scarring, I’ve found that weeks can go by with no noticeable change - and I log my impressions daily - and then I get a sudden improvement. This could be one of the sudden improvements, and though the medical papers were very positive, the whole thing still smells of snake oil to me. And the lamp I’m using is on the very bottom edge of recommended intensity. On the other hand, it wasn’t all that expensive: $40 for the lamp, $20 for the articulated arm, $3 for the extension cord.

I found out I could order the pieces and make a much brighter light for way less than they sell for assembled, so I placed an order last night. I can solder copper pipes together, how much harder could soldering tiny electrical wossnames be? “Fools rush in” and all that.

There’s not a lot of agreement as to the hazard from infrared light. But there’s something called “glassblower’s cataracts”. Turns out IR-blocking safety goggles are fairly expensive, so I just roll up a towel and lay it on my chest to block direct sight of the bulb, and it turned out that the sunglasses that came with my IPL depilator are IR-blocking, and I can still see the screen of the tablet through them.

Oh, and you can combine pumping and “red light therapy.” Tubes are polystyrene, acrylic, or polycarbonate; all about 90 to 92% transparent in the 660 to 850 nanometer range. That gets you more PE for your time investment!

In my case, the worst of the scarred areas get rolled up in my flaccid, so pulling the shaft erect with the pump lets the IR light get to the areas I most want to work on.

Not a tremendous amount to report; the healing has progressed until the scars are loose and flexible all day, without shrinking and hardening overnight. They are no longer painful when I pump… unless I skip a session of red light therapy, when they stiffen up a bit. I’m using 20 minute sessions with the 54 watt illuminator, four to six times per day. I’ve started using it before pumping, and then while in the tube, since the tube is mostly transparent to IR in 660 and 850nm. A proper test would involve comparing progress to time using the light to time not, but this has dragged on so long I don’t want to make the time investment. I’m certain it’s not *hurting* anything, and that’s good enough for my immediate purpose.

I had started off trying to do four pump sessions per day, two in the morning, two in the evening, but it seemed counterproductive to the healing process. So I slacked off for a few weeks, and after I had closed skin back, I started pumping again. I’m back up to two pairs of sessions per day, 20 minutes at 1/2 to 3/4” Hg. Yesterday morning I did three 20 minute sessions with a 10 minute rest between each, with no donut. I really need to finish my Arduino pump controller thingumabob… I also bought a $4 kitchen timer from eBay, one of the old-school kind with a twist knob, to alert me if I fall asleep. Most kitchen timers seem to be digital now.

I’m also getting some scrotum hang; the ball pocket in the Froehle tube isn’t huge, but it has helped the tight scrotum problem a lot. My thighs are chubby enough they push my enlarged scrotum around when I walk… at first it was very firm inside, like a soft sponge ball, but now I can feel the testicles in there, and the sponginess has been absent a couple of times. Whatever it was, it seems to becoming not-a-problem now. The scar on the scrotum that was giving me trouble before hasn’t been a problem lately; I’ve been using the Froehle at low vacuum instead of the 2.5” tube at 3”… but I’ve been making sure that spot gets its share of red light too. And everything is getting stretched every time I pump, which is now four times per day, which probably helps. I’d like to add an afternoon session, but there always seems to be something going on interfering. I’m doing what I can to reschedule my day, though, so hopefully I can grab at least half an hour sometimes.

I had used Shapelock plastic to mold a radiused opening on the 2.5” tube; the inside of the radiused opening was a hair under 2”, which turned out to be uncomfortably tight, particularly when a ball didn’t want to pass through. So last night I heated it back up and reshaped it out to 2.25”, with more radius on the outside. I’ll see how that works before making it an outside-only radius. That Shapelock stuff is still hilariously fun to play with.

Over the last several days the circular scar has remained soft and flexible. I stepped up from single 20 minute pump sessions morning and evening to two, or even three, 20 minute sessions, or one 30 minute session. No distress from the scar or donut.

I’ve been stepping up the pumping sessions rather quickly, but I’m not getting any donuts or turtling, so I figure I’m not exceeding my PI limits.

Last night I increased the vacuum from 1/2-3/4” to 1” for 20 minutes. No pain or donut. This morning the scar was still flexible, but had the “granular” feel it gets when it is stressed. I’ve had that happen each time I’ve worked my way back up after stopping due to injury. I rubbed some lotion in, spent 20 minutes under the RTL illuminator, did another pump session of 1” for 20 minutes (no donut!), then another 20 minutes after removing the tube. If it works like usual, it will be granular for a couple of days until it gets used to the extra stretch. then smooth back out. [crossing fingers]

I used the ball tube again, this time for only 10 minutes at 1” instead of as long as I could at 3”. My scrotum was loose after using the Froehle tube, so everything slid right in. No discomfort during the 10 minute session - I had decided to cut the time and vacuum way back and work slowly out - but about fifteen minutes afterward I noticed some discomfort from the wossname that suspends the right testicle. The discomfort has increased slowly over the last half hour. It doesn’t actually hurt; it’s more like when you sit down wrong and get a ball wedgie, except rearranging things doesn’t help. It could be a sign of epidydimitis(sp), or it could be that it just doesn’t like being stretched. If it is still a problem after a couple more weeks I’ll see the doc. On the plus side, there was no reaction from the scarred patch on the scrotum itself.

I was getting morning wood (for values of ‘moderate ED’) maybe every other day until I upped the pumping vacuum and added extra sessions. I’m ascribing this to poor PI from the extra stress. Since scar reduction is more important than morning wood, I’ll just let my unit get used to the new stress and see what happens.

I dropped the ball tube vacuum to 1/2”; no discomfort at all in the tube. Lost track of time and went 25 minutes instead of the scheduled 15. About 10 minutes after coming out of the tube, I could feel mild discomfort along the vas deferens, but less than yesterday. The last few sessions, the scar on the scrotum hasn’t been painful. I guess “slow and easy” is working there.

Now I know why some people talk about taking breaks from PE for a while. It takes me about an hour, morning and bedtime, and every now and then late afternoon if I can arrange it. It has moved from “new and interesting” to “tedious” after a couple of months. Hopefully it will progress to “routine.” I’m already at the point where I feel guilty if I think about skipping a session, anyway.

For keeping track of things I’m using a plain text file, free-form, using the block below. I don’t do every single thing every day. I write tube size, vacuum, whether I got a donut, times, number of reps, etc. out to the side, and miscellaneous comments underneath. A speadsheet would allow fancy reporting, but it’s simpler to enter data free-form. In this case, recording everything is more important than making charts. If (or more likely, when) I transition from repair to extension (why not, I’m doing most of the same work already) I’ll probably do up a spreadsheet since things will probably be less chaotic.

DATE:
plug:
gauge out:
AM pump:
PM pump:
ball pump:
jack off:
Kegels:
extender:
DMSO:
IR light:
UV light:
IPL:
depilatory:
shave:
ice pack:
underwear:
AM wood:
turtling:
other:

I thought women loved this.

I think it distracted her. She hated it when I Kegeled while inside, too.

I bumped the pumping sessions up to 30 minutes, 10 break, and 30 minutes, at 1” Hg, morning and evening, with no donut. Then I had some time and added an afternoon session on a couple of days ago. There was no donut immediately after the last session, but one formed during the night (a first for me!) and was still prominent yesterday morning. So, other than pumping my balls, I took the day off. Last night there was still a noticeable donut, but it was gone this morning. I dropped down to two 20 minute pumps at 1/2” and I’ll work back up.

The discomfort from the right vas has been getting less and less, even though I’ve been stepping up the pump times. The scar on the scrotum isn’t bothering me at all now, though it used to be quite painful. Gentle pumping, lotion, and the red light have helped a lot there. The Red Light Therapy still sounds scammy, but it seems to be working.

At the moment the scars on my shaft are loose and flexible and the skin slides up and down freely; no adhesions. It’s still tender to the touch, but there are no scabs at all, or even the “granulations” that occur when I extend pumping times or vacuum. I’m applying Lubriderm lotion several times per day, just to help keep the skin soft. There was no discomfort during this morning’s pumping session, though it was only at 1/2”Hg. Attempting to Kegel inside the tube put a painful stretch on the ring scar, so I only tried a couple of times.

This would technically qualify as “healed”, but I’ve been there before, and I know from experience the skin is about as strong as wet toilet paper; I tore it open once by carelessly pushing the skin back to urinate and it took six weeks to heal. I forget what I did the other time. And of course there was the last time, when I masturbated just by working the base of the shaft, and all it took was the skin behind the glans rolling up and down and it cracked open and scabbed over. So *this* time I’m going to be more careful…

I’m going to continue pumping to stretch the scars some more. It’s time to resume the DMSO/iodine applications now that I don’t have any open wounds or scabs. I used DMSO/iodine for several weeks before I found out that it would inhibit healing, but I suspect it also helped keep keloid scars from forming in the first place.

I dug out the ruler and attempted a measurement, and… looks like the fat pad, which was always noticeable, is now so thick that pushing the ruler all the way down to my pelvic bone is a no-go; it feels like the ruler is going to punch through the skin before I hit bottom. There’s a lot of fairly firm fat pad there.

Well, that sucks.

The silver lining is I was showing five inches or so on the ruler before I gave up, so I probably haven’t lost any length. The worrisome shortness appears to be all fat pad.

Also, starting Friday, I resumed the urethral stretching, making it all the way to the 9.66mm plug after 35 hours. That took at least twice that the first few times. I’m pretty sure the 10mm plug would have gone in with no problem, but the meatus was feeling pretty beaten up and I decided to wait until next weekend.

10mm is my goal; that should give me plenty of room to manipulate the Tetherspout bits inside the fossa navicularis.

The UV-C bulb finally showed up. It’s a 40 watt corncob LED. I was looking at the eBay listings again and almost everything was 60 watt, all with strong warnings not to expose bare skin to them. I’m going to have to research that now…

Since I want to avoid any further infections, anything that supports bacteria, viruses, or fungi needs to go. Pubic hair can harbor nasties; it’s gone. Clean underwear twice a day, commando at night. 91% isopropyl alcohol wipes after showering. The UV sterilizer lamp is supposed to be part of that; I can use it at the same time as the IR illuminator. No, nothing can absolutely prevent reinfection - as the doc said, “staph is everywhere” - but I can make it a lot harder for them to get a start.

I’m still rubbing a lotion into the scarred areas to keep them soft. Unfortunately, most lotions are full of stuff that bugs can eat. I had found one lotion that worked noticeably better than others, but its label proudly proclaimed “made with OATMEAL!”, which seems to be the latest lotion fad. The label didn’t say how *much* oatmeal was in it, but smearing food on open wounds didn’t seem like a smart way to avoid a repeat infection.

Sooo… I’d resumed use of DMSO+iodine recently. I don’t have a regular schedule; I try to remember to apply it after I take a shower. Which happened late last night. Then I wound up doing my morning pump session early, and…

Normally I pump somewhere between 1/2” and 1” vacuum. That’s when the stretch on the scar ring gets painful. I’ve pumped past that and torn the scar, which takes weeks to heal. Various things cause the scar to stiffen up; not applying Lubriderm often enough or forgetting to take my underwear off at night are the main ones.

This morning I pumped to 1”, didn’t feel anything in particular, moved up to 3, then 5, where I felt some tension, and then to 7, where there was definite tension, but no pain. I backed off to 3” just on general principles and did two 20 minute sessions. I pump laying on my side, under the infrared illuminator, so I can get light directly on each side of the shaft, 20 minutes one side, ten minutes break, and 20 minutes on the other. I bumped the vacuum back up to 5” for the last few minutes, felt just fine. I had the urge to go on for 30 minutes, but I quit at 20. No soreness on the scar, no donut.

We’re dealing with a sample size of one, but I’m really, er, pumped about this. Enough to shoot off at the keyboard instead of seeing how the next few sessions work out before seeing if there was anything real to report.

The fancy Froehle anatomical “full package tube” worked very well, but I’m packing it now, and it is becoming uncomfortable. The inside of the tube is around 1-7/8”. I was going in soft and pumping up, which worked, but now it’s tending to pull lengthwise on the scar instead of circumferentially. That’s painful, and not necessary, at least at the moment.

Froehle makes a 2-3/8” bore tube which I could probably use, but it’s bigger than I need; at least, I fit well in a 2-1/4” tube. And the big tube is maybe a foot long, with an exaggerated baseball bat shape I don’t like.

Gharr… Looks like I’ll be back in the old LeLuv 2-1/4” tube now.

PE day 144:

urethral stretching plugs: 906h 30m
pumping: 64h 20m (mostly Froehle “package” tube)
separate ball pumping: 27h 55m (2-1/2” straight tube)
IR Red Light Therapy: 35h 55m
IPL flash depilator: 19 times
depilatory: 2 times
shaved: 11 times

Not too much time with the urethra stretchers lately; I’ve been dealing with some stuff where I had to be out and about. There’s no problem with the plugs per se, it’s just that they might be too tight to remove without serious pain one minute, and literally the next minute they’ll slide out on their own, usually while urinating. If they do it in my shorts, they can wind up halfway out and as I move around they work the meatus back and forth as I walk, which is painful. It’s not always practical to stick a hand down my pants and play with myself…

On the positive side, each week or so when I restart, the constriction behind the meatus is a little looser and expands faster. So even if it’s not very fast, I’m still making progress.

I generally pump four times per day, twice in the morning, twice in the evening. Sessions are 20 to 30 minutes laying on the left side, a ten minute rest, and 20 to 30 minutes on the right side. I switch sides because I normally use the RLT lamp at the same time, and it lets it get to each side of the shaft and scrotum evenly. I’ve moved up from 1/2 to 1”Hg a few months ago to 2 to 3Hg now. Sometimes the scar gets painful and I’ll back off to 1” for a session.

The scar ring varies in tightness and hardness, likely as a result of how much it has rubbed against my underwear during the previous day. Every now and then it will tighten up and turn hard again, but it’s more likely to become very flexible and stretchy. Mostly it’s sort of in between, but it helps to know that it *can* be almost normal, and that it’s slowly improving. PE is the art of slow, it seems…

I’ve been able to keep to the two-sets-a-day pumping schedule; the few times I’ve missed, it was usually because I had to get up at oh-dark-thirty to go to a client site, and I didn’t want to wake up an hour earlier than *that* for the morning session. I used the red light faithfully after I got it a couple of months ago, but the last few weeks I’ve only used it in the evenings. I’ve relocated to what used to be a “junk room” so I’d have room for all the “stuff” and could use it without bothering my wife, but it’s an added-on room with no heat, and flipping back the blankets in the morning to use the light is… brrr…

The glans was *raw* and painful for a long time, even after the meds knocked the infection out. But now that it has healed up, the outer skin is almost completely numb. The meatus doesn’t seem to lack sensation, judging from its objection when I step up a plug size. I suspect there’s nerve damage from when the scar ring was so tight it was cutting off circulation, back before I started stretching it by pumping. The skin on the section of shaft ahead of the scar ring doesn’t have much sensation either. I suppose I might be upset under other circumstances, but I’m mostly glad it didn’t move on to gangrene or something. Nerves will sometimes regenerate over time; if they do, great. If not, well, bummer.

I never knew my glans was “small”, I just thought I had a pointy dick. I yearn for one of those Pumptoys GlansXPand tubes, but at over $200, it’s not in the budget. It would… make it easier to use an extender. Yeah. And… uh… a “more normal” penis shape. Right. Maybe I could justify that if I look at it from the right angle… if I’d known about those tubes before, I would have just put one on the credit card. Due to turtling, it took the wound area months to heal. I bought an extender, with the idea it would hold the shaft out so it could dry and heal. But due to the small glans, it wasn’t really practical to use a standard JES-style extender. I bought a Size Doctor, but I managed to tear the skin over the wound area a couple of times getting it on and off. I looked at the Penimaster Pro, but like the GlansXPand tube, it was a budget breaker. If I could be sure it worked, yes… but I’ve thrown a bunch of money into this already, so I blew the money I had left on car repairs. “You can’t get there from here.” At least I have some more equipment to play with once I get to the “let’s do PE now!” stage.

I had an idea a few days ago; next time I’m running the plug cycle, I’m going to try the JES extender next time I get the 9mm plug in. The glans is noticeably larger when plugged; maybe enough to let the extender get a grip behind the corona without slipping off. It might just pinch the glans around the plug and cut off circulation, but if you never try, you never know.

The scrotum is expanded coming out of the Froehle tube. I generally use the ball tube in the evenings; put it on, pump to 3 to 5 inches. Pump sessions are limited by the mouth of the tube “pinching” at the base of the shaft. There is no longer any pain from the scar on the side of the scrotum, the right testicle, or the right vas. The right testicle is still *very* small, olive size; it was normal before, so it was probably infected too. After the first of the year I’ll get an appointment with a urologist. I doubt they’ll be able to do anything about the size, but at least they can (hopefully) tell if there’s some other problem that needs to be addressed.

I’ve shaved off and on for decades, but lately I seem to get ingrown hairs every time. I followed the directions for the IPL when I got it, and got good results… but backing off to once a month after the start-up routine just let the hair grow back unimpeded. I probably need to use it every day or every other day; the flashtube doesn’t last forever, but if it’s not doing me any good, why bother?

The Nad’s depilatory worked fine… but the smell was terrible, and repeated washing didn’t do much about it. I used it once and set the tube aside for months. A few days ago I tried it again, and this time my wife picked up on the smell from the next room and objected strenuously. I ordered some “Magic Shaving Powder” and I’ll see how that works.

I had the best of intentions for using the freezer packs for cryolipolysis, but I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve only done it a few nights, and the routines need to run one or two weeks. They’s not particularly bothersome, it’s just that I don’t think about it until after I lay down, and damned if I’m going to get up… and then I promise myself I’ll grab a pack next time I get up to pee, and then when I’ve laid back down I’ll remember again…

Kegels really helped with the urinary drip problem. As in, virtually eliminated it. But for some reason I can only do them while erect or pumped. Apparently I now have ED; could be from the infection, could just be my age, though there was no problem before. I get morning wood, sometimes only partial, once or twice a week, and Kegel then. Doing them in the tube is an “it depends” thing; sometimes when I pump enough to Kegel, the Kegels cause the shaft to swell behind the scar ring and stretch it painfully. So I do them when I can. When I see the doc in January I’ll see if I can get a prescription for Cialis. Doing the low-dose regimen would help several things.

That’s it for this week’s infodump.