AndyJ's stricture and scarring rehab

It occurred to me that if the skin on the shaft needed stretching, and that was why using the pump was stretching it painfully, then maybe the pump tube was the appropriate device for stretching the skin.

My usual tubes either have a rolled base or a large radius I molded with ShapeLock plastic, but I have an old tube that’s just radiused on the entry. It’s reasonably comfortable anyway.

Instead of using my regular lubricant, I’m going to use “the glop”, which I mixed up earlier this evening. That’s shea butter, jojoba oil, and hyaluronic acid. Shea butter is supposed to prevent stretch marks, jojoba oil is a reasonable lube, and hyaluronic acid is a moisturizer. Hopefully they will soften the skin and let it stretch in the tube.

Downside: the hyaluronic acid and jojoba oil both have disagreeable, though faint, odors. The shea butter just stinks. Mrs. Andy doesn’t smell anything objectionable, so it’s probably just me… but I will have to schedule the pumping sessions for when I can take a shower afterward.

Well, it’s something to do while I’m waiting for replacement O-rings for the Size Doctor. I managed to lose the external O-ring somehow, and it won’t hold a seal without it.

I found the odor of the shea butter mostly goes away after 12 hours of so if I leave the container open. I did some reading up and found out the stuff only has a shelf life of a couple-three years “under proper conditions” and can go rancid much faster in hot environments, plus low-grade shea butter has a stronger odor than fresh stuff. So what I have is probably low-grade butter nearing the end of its shelf life. Still useable, though.

The shea butter I have is more like thick wood putty than ‘butter’, and too stiff to be really useful. The only suggestion I found online were “whipping” it with oil in a food mixer, but I noticed that while the shea butter didn’t seem to be particularly soluble in either hyaluronic acid or jojoba oil, it did get softer over the course of a day.

The next batch, I’m going to cut way down on the jojoba oil so it’s not as messy, and spread the mix out on a plate to let it air out before putting it in its container.

April 2021 monthly and cumulative log
04/30/2021 - day 283
start date 07/19/2020

task: April / cumulative

total hours, April: 116h 10m (30 days)
total hours since 07/19/2020, 1,371h 35m (283 days)

notes:

1) the urethra gauge shows I’m getting new strictures in the urethra. That started happening right after I started clamping. I’m pretty sure that’s the cause, since I was stricture-free for more than six months before clamping. The gauge breaks up the strictures without any side effects I’m aware of. Opening up the strictures is almost painless; just pushing the gauge past the tight spots is all it takes. The urology papers I’ve perused don’t make any distiction between kinds of strictures, and they use the same procedure on all of them. The one I had at the meatus was very tight and took months and hundreds of hours with plugs of increasingly-larger sizes; it wasn’t until I fixed the meatus that I was able find the strictures further down, which were trivial to stretch, apparently permanently, as long as I’m not clamping there.

2) extending has been only the Size Doctor, mostly with paracord and a pulley or hanging a weight down my pants. It’s OK for around the house or in the garage, but too bulky for “out and about.”

3) I’ve used a 1.5” LeLuv “wide” cock ring a bit this month. I need something closer to 1.25”, or ideally 1 inch and very stretchy. The “extreme grower” thing may make wearing a ring outside of PE work impractical. I’ve used it while extending and edging. Pumping with it on gave me a lot of edema at times and pressures that normally cause none, so I won’t be following up on that.

4) healing has progressed to where I can manipulate the shaft with only slight discomfort. I’ve been trying some jelq moves from time to time. Looks like I’ll be able to do that soon. I will be spending some time away from the house this summer, and jelquing would eliminate the need to carry hardware around.

5) I’ve been tracking EQ as “morning wood” and “fluffability”; being able to get an erection by hand when I want one. EQ in general has gone up a lot in the last couple of months, though the “morning wood” thing seems to go in cycles. I keep a detailed medical log as well as the PE log, and I haven’t seen any obvious cause/effect. Since the beginning of the year I’ve moved from “erectile dysfunction” to “doing damned good for someone over 60”, even if it’s not the instant-on steel bar of my teens and 20s.

6) some of the “testicle health” pages recommend massaging the testicles regularly. It still takes pumping and heat to coax them, particularly the right one, down so I can get to them.

Day 291:

Lately I’ve been splitting my PE time between pumping and extending. I went back to the “too small” Froehle package tube and I’ve mainly been using it with the Spectre S2 breast pump. The vacuum signal from the pump gets attenuated by the length of the tubing and the unused space in the tube, probably only 2” or so Hg very briefly just before it dumps vacuum and restarts.

The preset cycle length of the S2 is 30 minutes. When I started using it a couple of months ago, I could use it about an hour before I started getting a donut. With the shea butter and a five-minute break between cycles, I can now do 90 minutes with zero edema. Ordinarily 90 minutes is a lot of time, but I tend to use it either when going to bed or as a “snooze alarm” in the morning. The buzzing stops, I fumble around and press the button again, and go back to sleep.

I’m getting some skin stretch; not much yet, but enough to make the healed scarred areas a bit tender and grainy. They’re the weak spots, so they’re stretching first.

I get more stretch using the Mityvac and more vacuum, but I get more edema and more pain from the scars. The S2 seems to do just as well, and the extra time is “free” since it operates automatically.

I’m getting re-conditioned to the Size Doctor, and it’s getting easier to keep it on until the glans expands enough for it to stay for an entire session. It took a week to get replacement O-rings in, and then another week to get the correct replacement O-rings… long enough to need to start over. I caught myself trying to push it, then had to remind myself that it’s not a competition. I just hate having to do things over, I guess.

One interesting thing about the extender is that I don’t even feel it any more. I’ve caught myself reaching down to make sure it’s still attached. That will probably change once I get fully conditioned and can ramp the weight up. Even at only 1.18 pounds, I still get an occasional twinge or stab as one of the internal scars lets go. And now I can manipulate the shaft by hand, and other than the external scars (which are much better), everything feels pretty much normal inside, without all the painful or hard spots I had, even as late as a couple of months ago.

A while back I started tracking the amount of time I’ve been putting in. Pretty much all the spare time I have, three to six hours per day. I’m still seeing progress with scar mitigation, so I’ll continue until I’m not seeing any more improvements and call it done. Unless the scars re-harden during the deconditioning break, I’ll then “start from zero” and work on length.

I’m two weeks into the aggressive pumping and extending routine. The basic plan is an hour of shaft pumping with the breast pump, then another hour with the vacuum extender on my glans and the pump tube on my balls, then twenty minutes of edging with a stretchy cock ring and “the glop” which is basically shea butter and whatever I’ve thrown into the latest batch.

The ring holds engorgement so I can massage the glop into the shaft. It helps the wrinkles and sore spots from the vacuum cap, might help the shaft skin stretch, and is *definitely* helping the scars; most of the granular tissue has flaked off, there’s very little soreness, and only a slight indentation at the scar when ringed or clamped, as opposed to “deep scar ring” just a few weeks ago.

This is still technically reconstruction mode. Every now and then some internal scar bit will pop loose. The skin on the shaft is still too tight to get a BPEL measurement, but I’m reasonably sure I’m about where I started. The external scar has improved far beyond my expectations. Flaccid length is better than it ever was. If I were working on a normal PE program I would be grossly overtraining, but EQ is still improving.

Today is the 308th day since I started on 07/14/2020. I’m planning to continue my random pattern of “whatever seems good today” until 07/14/2021, just to make sure the scar reduction is permanent, and then I’ll declare victory and move to a formal routine for stretching.

I managed to wreck my back shortly after the last post. Looks like a disc has failed. Surgery isn’t an option at the moment, so life is going to suck more than usual for a while.

I saw my regular doc yesterday and gave him an update on my penis repair program. From his reaction, he should be glad he didn’t go into urology… he’s supportive of my DIY approach, but the details were definitely Too Much Information. Usually I’m the one who gets squicked by medical stuff.

May 2021 monthly and cumulative log
05/31/2021 day 314

task: May / cumulative
spout: —— / ——
plug: 11h50m / 942h35m
gauge out: 5x / 14x
pumping: 67h50m / 224h25m
ball pump: 31h05m / 118h40m
ball pull: —— / 6h55m
ball masg.: 00h21m 4x / 00h46m 7x
ball wt.: —— / ——
edge: 8h40m / 51h40m
jelq: —— / 15x straight out
jelq: 60x / 75x reverse-OK
jelq: —— / 25x V-stretch
clamp: 00h44m / 2h52m
Kegels: 2790x / 12,810x
cock ring: 6h30m / 8h05m mostly MOS #3
extender: 48h25m / 109h55m Size Doctor
RLT light: 9h30m / 90h35m
hair: IPL: 8x / 39x
hair: depilatory: 3x / 7x
hair: shave: 9x / 47x
hours: 184h55m / 1,556h20m

notes:
1) I’ve been using the breast pump and the Froehle tube a lot this past month, and also the breast pump with a straight 2-1/8” tube on my balls. The breast pump only pulls an inch or two of vacuum, but the pulses don’t cause edema like the steady vacuum of the hand pump. I hit the button for 30 minutes, and most of the time another 30 minutes. Three times, I’ll start getting edema, unless I wait 20 or 30 minutes.

I’m getting almost as much expansion at the breast pump’s 1-2” Hg as I was getting with the hand pump at 5” Hg, and it’s not edema. It’s not doing anything useful for stretch, but I’m not concerned about that at the moment.

2) I’ve been getting a lot of time with the Size Doctor extender, too. Almost as much in May as in the previous six months. Still at tensions from just over 1/2 pound to 1-1/2 pounds, .25 to .75kg, approximately. I’m using a gasket one size larger than optimum, trying to expand the sulcus area. It works okay most of the time, but every now and then my shaft shrinks so much the bell slips off. It’s part of the “extreme grower” thing… but over time, it seems to be getting better.

3) I generally edge after using the extender, often with one of the stretchy silicone “retainer” style rings. Sometimes I will use a clamp as well. The clamp works *really* well at expanding the scar tissue, but I’m still leery of it.

4) I’m still using “the glop” - shea butter, hyaluronic acid, jojoba oil, and after reading about topical L-arginine, I’ve been dumping a capsule of that in there too. Seems to be working okay.

5) everything was going swimmingly, until I wrecked my back on the 28th. So I’m a few days short of a full month of PE. I mostly whined and complained for the next eight days before managing to resume some light PE; just pumping and extending so far.

The scar had shrunk and hardened slightly, and cracked circumferentially when I pumped the first time. I had thought it was completely healed, based on flexibility, but apparently not. It’s healing back up now. I expect it will eventually remain soft and not shrink; if not, well, all the equipment is paid for, and I’ll just keep using it.

Assuming no further setbacks, I still expect to move from repair to enlargement on 07/14, which will be the end of a full year of repair.

Szonified fracking proportional fonts… I move the tabular data over from my nice clean editor, and the forum mungs it up.

I had fairly severe ED a year ago when I started PE. I wasn’t too worried about it; if push came to shove, “there’s a pill for that.” Erectile function improved over the next six months, but only to “still definitely has ED.”

I began taking L-Arginine at the first of the year, which gave a modest but welcome result. I added L-Triptophan, and later L-Lysine, spreading them across morning, afternoon, and evening. That was a couple of months ago. I don’t have the instant wood I had in my 20s, but my EQ is now pretty darned good for someone in his early 60s; more like someone in his early 30s.

I’m still experimenting with boron, in the form of borax. It makes me very irritable, so I take it at night before going to bed. I’ll have spontaneous wood off and on the next day. It’s cheap enough if you want to try it yourself, and if it doesn’t work for you, you can use it to do your laundry.

A couple of weeks ago I started taking Damiana. It hasn’t made my balls any bigger, but my scrotum is noticeably firm and it doesn’t pull up tight all the time. I haven’t found any negative effects, other than the price.

Sssooo… the Secret Project nears completion. Sorry, no pictures yet.

It’s a water-heated tube.

I had a spare 2-1/4” LeLuv tube, one of the cheap ones. I bought a roll of 1/4” clear vinyl tubing at the hardware store, and it was enough to coil around most of the length of the tube, with the coils touching.

I ordered some 90 degree barb fittings to press into the ends of the tube, then warmed up some Shapelock plastic and started wrapping the tube. The Shapelock sticks very well to the acrylic and vinyl. I used a ring of Shapelock to start wrapping, blobs here and there to keep the coils in place while I was working, and another ring of Shapelock at the end. The tubing seems to be firmly anchored to the tube. The poor LeLuv tube now looks like a prop from a cheap science fiction movie.

I needed a source of hot water. I was looking at immersible heaters, decided an old-school coffee pot might be ideal, and then found the local dollar store was closing out crock pots for $5, so I bought one of those. I bought a programmable temperature controller from eBay, and an external “inline” aquarium pump, an aquarium valve, and some minor oddments. I still need to add a 1/8” hose barb to the end of the LeLuv tube.

It’s pretty much a Rube Goldberg arrangement, but hot water gets pulled out of the crock pot, pumped through the coil of vinyl tubing around the pump tube, and returns to the crock pot. The programmable temperature controller will be set to 110F. I need to get a power strip so the crock pot, pump, and temperature controller all have one switch.

The vacuum fitting at the end of the tube goes to a 20oz water bottle that acts as a water trap, then on to the vacuum pump.

The extra, 1/8” barb has a hose running to a 10oz bottle full of water, with an aquarium valve.

Theoretically, once I start the vacuum pump and get a good seal, I can open the aquarium valve and vacuum will pull water from the 10oz bottle into the empty spaces in the LeLuv tube. Then I close the valve. If I don’t, most of the water will be sucked into the 20oz bottle, which is big enough to keep any of the water from getting in the vacuum pump.

I’m still waiting for minor fittings and bits to show up, but I should have everything I need.

This project has been dragging on a while - I’m an expert at procrastination - but at the time I was having problems finding an electric heating pad the right size to wrap a tube with, and I had just finished a homemade CPU cooler for my computer, so it seemed like a logical thing to do… and that also kept my naughty bits away from potential electrical oopsies. Nothing but water and vacuum hoses attached to the tube.

I have some room in a 2-1/4” tube; water is a better conductor of heat than air, and I wanted to try water pumping anyway.

The announcement might be slightly premature, but I just ordered the last (hopefully) hose adapters and bits, and I’m pretty excited that it’s finally coming together.

“You’re late!”
“No, no, no, you’re early.”
“I’m never premature.”
“Oh, well, that is a surprise, given what I’ve heard. I’m sure it’s a matter of perspective, really. But for a Narn, two minutes must be a long time, so if you go the duration, it’s an accomplishment. But for the Centauri, hours can go by before you even get to the good parts.”
— G’Kar and Londo in Babylon 5: “Rising Star”

Six weeks of moisturizing and pumping haven’t helped the tight skin problem enough to notice. I “tent” too much to get the ruler down to the pubic bone to make a proper BPEL measurement. I tried shifting the ruler off to the side, still no joy.

Though NBP measurements aren’t all that useful since they’re not very repeatable, I pushed the ruler down as far as it would go, measured while pulling behind the glans (I was flaccid at the time) and got 5-7/8” NBPFSL.

Years ago I measured 5.5” BPEL; 5.75” if I had been pumping beforehand. So apparently I’ve been getting some “newbie gains” out of the mild pumping and extending I’ve been doing as part of the healing routine.

So, A) I haven’t lost anything, and B) I’m not likely to see any newbie gains when I formally start PE next month.

I’m still pumping at low intensity; generally around 2” Hg. The skin stretches with some discomfort, but the tube still “floats” above the pubic bone on the tented skin instead of going all the way down.

I’ve stepped up the pumping from 2x20 minute sessions with the MityVac to 3 to 5 hours with the breast pump. The numbers are a bit of a cheat; I get up at night to go pee, I slap the tube on and push the button, so that’s an hour and a half on the average, and I do it before I go to sleep, that’s two hours, and add a double session every morning and evening, that’s four hours easy. The intensity is low, but it’s heck for duration… I figure as long as I’m not getting edema, there’s no reason not to maintain extension as much as possible.

The pump for the heated tube came in. It has a 3/4” inlet and a 1/2” outlet. I’m going to have to order some adapters for 1/4” tubing. After looking at the hose sizes and the 320-gph flow rating, I ordered a fan speed controller to slow it down. I only need a trickle of water through the tube, but this was the smallest pump I could find at a reasonable price.

The Bib Hanger arrived. Mrs. Andy is the Designated Package Opener. She said the Bib looked like a prop from one of the Aliens movies. I need to finish the Comfy Chair project. My back sure isn’t going to put up with hanging my butt over the edge of a chair to hang.

For the last four or five days I’ve managed to get four or five hours per day in the Size Doctor. At 1.5 pounds I managed to get some more “granulation” in the scarred areas, which apparently happens when the scars are stretched. The granulation has gone away now. I can hook up a one pound weight and everything stays put fine. At 1-1/4 pounds I might have to use the bulb to pull back into the bell once or twice before everything settles down. At 1-1/2 pounds I’ll have to do that, and then it’ll start to slip more and more often after an hour or so, until it’s not worth the hassle to keep re-seating it. I was a bit annoyed until I remembered that was happening at 1/2 pound a few months ago. PE is surely the zen of “get your instant gratification mañana…” But hey, I really don’t have any excuse to complain. And I haven’t pulled any blisters lately either.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve begun using the Froehle package tube and the Spectra breast pump at night while sleeping. I’ll put it on and push the button as I’m going to sleep, then after getting up to pee at night. I generally do that three times per night; the urologist was insistent I drink a lot of water after having a kidney stone years ago, and all that water needs to leave periodically…

I modified the tube with some Shapelock plastic. The original opening was somewhere around 2-3/4”; I molded a thick radiused ring around it, shrinking the opening to about 2”. Getting it on takes a bit of effort now; shaft first, then one ball, then the other, and there’s a pretty sharp twinge as they squeeze through the available space, even with the shaft mostly flaccid.

For the first week or so, after the pump shut down, I’d eventually shrink and the tube would partially disconnect. I could pull it off easily. Lately my flaccid has remained large and my balls have stayed in the pocket, and the tube remains firmly in place. If I wake up at night I can just push the button for another 30 minutes and go back to sleep. If I have to get up and pee, I have to disconnect the hose at the tube so air can get in freely, then bend and tug until I can get it off. I basically have the large flaccid in the tube all night, even while not actively pumping.

I’m seeing the longer flaccid and looser scrotum for most of the day, now.

Four 30-minute sessions over a typical 5-hour night - I’m now at the age where that’s “a full night’s sleep” - will leave no edema. The breast pump only pulls an inch or two of vacuum and then drops to zero, or close to it. 30 minutes with the Mityvac at the same felt vacuum will leave noticeable edema; apparently the pulsing reduces edema. I would have thought it would *increase* edema, but it doesn’t work that way in practice.

Five 30-minute sessions and I will have slight edema that’s more like “thickened skin” than a donut. Six 30-minute sessions (over the usual 5 hours) and I’ll get a slight donut that massages out in a minute or two.

General opinion on Thunders’ is not to do any PE while you’re asleep, since you wouldn’t be able to deal with a problem if it arose. In my case, I’ve been using the pump during the day since the beginning of the year, and then while taking naps, and decided it would be safe while asleep as well. “Your mileage may vary.”

The “ball pocket” Froehle tube and re-molded entry keep the tube in place even when the pump is off, and it’s maintaining a good seal even while flaccid. I added plastic until the entry was as small as it could be and still let me enter the tube without major discomfort, like using my thumbs to force my balls past the shaft. A straight tube with one of those silicone gaskets might also work; I’ve tried a few of the gaskets and found they were either too tight (cock ring effect; I get big edema in the tube with a ring) or too stiff (felt like they were cutting my dick off after a while).

Anyway, I’m getting two or more hours of low-intensity pump time per day, not coming out of my “do stuff” time, and I’m seeing definite measurable results from it.

I bought a “baby bottle sterilizer” for sterilizing my tubes and other equipment. The cheap ones are just plastic tubs you put in the microwave with a little water. I wanted something self-contained, which of course costs more. I found something on eBay that looked ideal; a “Munchkin” device that was big enough to take my full-package tube, with a basket on top for small stuff. I found an “open box” one for less than half retail price, shipped. For one reason or another, I didn’t get around to using it for a couple of months. The lights come on, it beeps, and goes through its complete cycle… except the heating element remains stone cold. After two months, I’m not going to pester the seller about it. I took it apart - which was quite the project - just in case there was a fuse or thermal breaker in there. There’s a remarkable amount of electronics, I guess for the light show, but no fuse. The problem could be staring me in the face, but electronics isn’t one of my skills.

So, I looked around, found nothing I liked better, and then found a used one for $25, shipped, with a guarantee from the vendor. It came in, I put water in and turned it on, and… same as the first one, no heat.

<sigh>

The vendor will refund the purchase price and shipping. Mrs. Andy offered to buy me a new one after chastising my for my cheapskate ways. I found a bunch of places listing the same model as “out of stock” or “discontinued”, but Munchkin’s web site still has it in stock for $70 with free shipping, which is less than many of the baby-accessories shops were asking.

I had planned to glue a chunk of acrylic rod to the conical part of the cylinder and drill and tap it for a 1/4 NPT pipe fitting. But it turns out that acrylic glue and rod are a lot more expensive than last time I bought them. After some thought I ordered a bolt-through valve stem, the kind with the nut on the outside, and a step drill, which is the recommended tool for drilling holes in acrylic. I *should* have all the parts when those come in.

So the “Munchkin” baby bottle cleaner came in. This one, directly from the manufacturer. I tossed some PE bits in, added water, and turned it on.

Yep, it works. It gets really hot. Visible steam emerges from the vent on the lid. Great! I took the lid off and pulled my Froehle tube out. Most of the carefully-formed Shapelock plastic was sitting in the ball pocket, most of the rest was on the tray or had seeped through and was down in the bottom.

Well, drat.

I picked off what I could, then put it back in to run it back through, turned so hopefully the plastic inside would run out the bottom. I put a piece of aluminum foil under it to catch it.

The room is small, but it has a big window air conditioner that typically has no trouble keeping it cool. Third steam cycle, it’s hot and muggy in here. Nothing like raising the humidity to make it uncomfortable.