Major Blow Up with Penis Pump

Hi All,

I’m new here and wish I had come a week earlier. My background: I jelqed some 10 years ago and gained 3/4” and haven’t done much since. Until last week. I thought I’d try a penis pump to spice things up with my wife. My only research was on Amazon. I bought a vacuum pump without a gauge and used it 7-10 minutes on low speed. I felt some pain but didn’t think much of it. The pump didn’t do anything to the length but expanded me from a 4 3/4 girth to around 5 1/2. I thought it was pretty great until I took it off. My penis has been flaccid since that time.

I have never had a problem getting an erection but now am completely flaccid—nothing at all. Interestingly, I still get at least one nighttime erection (I’m a light sleeper) that I’m aware of and it’s straight. It’s about 60-70% of a full erection. I’m in my early 50s and in solid health. I exercise, don’t smoke, don’t drink and eat good foods—lots of veggies and protein with few carbs/sugars. I take no medications.

I haven’t been to the doctor for anything but an annual checkup in my life. I freaked out two days after the event and went to the emergency room because I couldn’t get an appt. With a urologist for 30 days. The emergency room did an ultrasound and everything looked normal. They helped refer me immediately into a well-known and respected urologist in the area who saw me that night. I had bruising at the base of my penis and a little more bruising near the glans, with some red marks along the shaft but nothing else. He looked at me and told me I’d be fine and that I just needed to give it a week or two. He said he’d dealt with much worse injuries. I have another appt. With him on January 10th. The bruising has completely resolved itself and my penis appears normal.

I’ve read enough of this forum to know what many of you will say. And I deserve the rebuff. I did no research, didn’t use a gauge and have no idea how high the pressure was in the vacuum. I also kept in on during some pain. I usually don’t do things so stupidly. But I just never considered the risks and none of the reviewers on Amazon mentioned any pain or subsequent problems.

Does anyone have any counsel? Am I totally screwed? Is my problem likely with the nerves or is it vascular? Is there any chance this will heal on it’s own, particularly given my age? What can I do to improve the probability that it might heal? And why can I still get a decent (though not complete) nighttime erection but absolutely 0 during the day? If I can get a nighttime erection, it seems like all might not be lost. And I really have no pain, no numbness, etc.. The total issue is the flaccidity.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Take 60 days off and start with the newbie routine. You’ll be okay!

It might be psychological. It sounds like you gave yourself a scare. If you’re stressed out and worried about it and trying to force things to happen, that might be what’s stopping you from getting erect.

Thanks for the replies guys. What do you mean by take 60 days off? I know that means no exercises, masturbation or sex (which isn’t a possibility anyway in my flaccid state). Should I massage the area to keep blood flow normal? Should I apply heat? Is it OK to go running with the merchandise bouncing around, etc.?

Also, I’m not sure it’s psychological—even though I get some reasonable nighttime erections. I wasn’t freaked out initially until I showed no response to any stimuli. So there must be a physical reason for the flaccidity. Given that I blew up the girth of my penis about 25% greater than it’s normal state at erection, could I have blown out cavernosa tissue or veins that may not come back? I know my anxiety is going to greatly inhibit my progress, so I’m trying to get some reassurance before seeing the doctor that it might be something much less onerous than irreversible nerve or vascular damage so that I can relax a little and let the healing process begin.

Obviously I can’t say for certain but it sounds like it should be just temporary. If you still have feeling in the glans and/or you haven’t lost feeling, then it would suggest the nerves are okay, and the night-time erections would suggest things are physically still functional.

That’s why I was thinking it was probably psychological, because if you think of it as a circuit, the nerves seem good, the mechanism’s still functional but the missing link seems to be the stimulus response.

It’s possible that you might have caused trauma to the structure, which the bruises would suggest could be the case. That trauma might have temporarily effected things and caused an initial problem, but it sounds like everything’s in place and working and should be okay. So it could be that it just needs a little more time to heal or that it’s already okay and that the mental trauma of the initial failure of the equipment is causing a psychological short-circuit in the stimulus response.

From what you’ve written it seems the urologist is confident that things should be fine and from what you’re reporting everything seems to be working, so it sounds like it should be okay. Just give it a little time and try not to extend the period of dysfunction by worrying and stressing.

Take a few days off. Take an anti-inflammatory like Aleve or Ibuprofen. Light massage with heat. Throw that Chinese pump away and invest in a quality piece of equipment, something with a hand pump that measures Hg pressure. When you start back up limit your vacuum pressure to no more than 5 Hg’s. Sessions should be no more than 15 - 20 minutes. A tiny bit of edema is acceptable, a lot isn’t. If you continue to have problems with ED, see your doctor.

Good advice already. If your unfortunate situation, which I symphatize with was to happen to me I would take a Cialis and see if things improve. I would continue taking a daily cialis until your nighttime erections are 100%.

I actually blew a blood blister the size of an acorn (I might even have a pic of it) and bled into my 1.75 cylinder (packed the tube easily), without a gauge, I tried to be cheap (smart) and payed for it royally.

Luckily my penis sucked the blood back in , and within 1-2 weeks everything was back to normal. I bought a proper pump with a gauge
And been having pumping since. The crappy thing was, I was part of thundersplace for a good few years and I outright didn’t listen, served me right but now lesson learned. Interesting about problems at the base, I’ve never had or heard of bruising there.. Just take care of yourself.

Note: when I was bleeding, I actually thought I destroyed my penis forever, our bodies are wonderful at repairing itself.

I agree that our bodies are wonderful at healing but it seems like yours was external with the blood blister. My problem is the exact opposite. The bruising and red marks all cleared up after three to four days so everything looks great, but it’s just limp and lifeless—except when I sleep and get the partial erection. So all the visible healing has occurred with no improvement in daytime activity. I’m not trying to get an erection manually, but during the day a normal penis will have some blood flow—mine doesn’t do anything.

It sounds like everyone thinks I need to chill, maybe do some daily massage to keep the tissue supple and apply heat. One of the pieces of advice was to take a Cialis every night. While I understand the advice to improve blood flow, that seems to fly in the face of most advice to let it rest and heal.

Any additional thoughts and personal experiences that are similar to mine would be greatly appreciated!

I find that firegoat rolls are extremely good for stimulating circulation (and what in my experience seems to be the tissue repair process), which itself couldn’t hurt in aiding and speeding any internal recovery that has to go on, but in your case I wonder if there’s a chance that even that recovery exercise could be too intense if you’ve damaged something.
Honestly, I wouldn’t worry myself to death about it any further than you have. You did all the right things seeking professional medical help and if their ultrasound is telling you that you’re ok, you are only gonna do yourself a disservice by creating a psychological obstacle on top of any physical injury, if there is one. Not that you shouldn’t go to your follow-up, do so! But just rest it, stay hydrated and try to encourage some light circulation if it ever is feeling cold or shriveled.

As a personal aside, through utterly boldfaced incredible stupidity I’ve injured my penis so horrendously following bad or no protocols that by all rights it should have fallen right off of my body, but with rest and attention to taking care of my body in total, it has had a way of rebounding miraculously.

Im just regurgitatinh the usual skilled urologist response to cases like yours. Cialis is supposed to help the healing with increased blood flow, but if it’s as bad as you say I think you should go back to your urologist and ask his opinion on a daily cialis.

There are other natural alternatives to ED drug therapy. One is L-Arginine (nitric oxide). You can find it in tablet form and in a powdered form, and if you want to get even more “natural” you can try Super Beets. Another supplement that promotes enhanced blood flow and is considered a vasodilator is Yohimbe. A natural compound supplement that has Yohimbe is “Libido Max”. I’ve used it and it works very well. Just be careful to take the smallest recommended dose to start with to see how you respond. Yohimbe will jack your blood pressure, so if you have hypertension it might not be the supplement for you.

If you didn’t need medication before, you aren’t going to right now.

It works at night, which means the thing works just fine.
The problem is that you scared yourself half to death and that anxiety is getting in the way of you getting it up. And it only gets worse when you focus on it and try to force a boner that isn’t meant to be.

Resume regular sexual activity as you are able. I bet that if your wife shows up wearing lingerie etc you’ll bounce right on back.

This is all very good and measured advice. It’s hard to keep proper perspective when your manhood goes on strike—especially when it’s self inflicted—but I’m encouraged by the level-headed thinking. My erections seem to be stronger at night—nearly 100% but still nothing in the day. I’d like to think it’s all psychological but there just seems to be a different texture to the flaccid fella. Not that I’d know exactly as I never paid that much attention, but it seems more rubbery or something—hard to explain. So the fear that I’ve destroyed nerves or something else continues to plague my thoughts. I’m hyperfocused on every little move or twist that never reached consciousness before. Did it move? Is it recovering? Was that twinge a new nerve growing back? I better reach down and make sure it’s warm enough to maximize blood circulation, etc..

But I like the advice of getting ginseng, ginko biloba and glutamine. I’ve already ordered those. And I’m going to try the L-Arginine and maybe Libido Max as well. There don’t seem to be any downside to any of these ideas. Who knows, I may pop a Cialis or two as well but I think I’ll wait on that until I see the urologist on the 10th. I don’t want to become dependent on a pill to get it up but maybe that wouldn’t happen.

Anyway, I appreciate all the considerate and measured advice. I’m a natural worrier and stress a lot but everything else pales in comparison to this. What was I thinking when I bought a pump from Amazon reviews and just went to town blowing it up like a balloon without considering the very real risks involved?

Thanks again to all and any additional thoughts, experiences or insight would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Franklin.
If you’re able to get decent erections at night, everything is functioning fine. The penis is hugely affected by thought - as soon as you think you may not be able to get an erection, you’ve set the scene for not getting one. It’s just the same as youngsters worrying about premature ejaculation; as soon as they worry it may happen, it either does, or they can’t get hard at all! If you’re a natural worrier, I suspect that’s the case for you.

Most guys who’ve done PE for any length of time will have experienced over doing it and not being able to get an erection for a few days. I certainly have!
It’s a bit like going to the gym for the first time in ages and hammering the squats, then finding your legs don’t work the next day, or going for the first run for a while and your legs feeling so tired you physically couldn’t run for a few days after. Once they realise their penis is just tired and needs recovery things start to get back to normal. The fact that you’re getting night wood when your conscious mind isn’t getting in the way is good.

Don’t worry about the amount of expansion you got in the cylinder - it won’t have been the corpora expanding that much (they don’t), just the skin pulling away from them, which causes bruising. That usually takes a couple of weeks to heal fully, then improvements happen quickly.