# permanently retracted foreskin?



## stirringleaf (Mar 16, 2002)

is it possible for someone to have this? My husband has a memory of being about 5 years old and a doctor retracting his foreskin very painfully. he has loose skin, but not a visible foreskin, in other words on first glance he looks circumsised but has no memory of ever being circumsised, and does have memory of being intact.

he can stretch the skin , to make it look like an intact penis...can circ'ed men do that too?

he is too embarrased to ask his mom what the heck happened when he was a kid, and we cant find anything online about it.....

thanks


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## Frankly Speaking (May 24, 2002)

There are two possibilities.

One is that he is intact and when the doctor retracted him, he also clipped his frenulum which would allow the foreskin to remain permanently retracted. The frenulum acts like a suspender to return the foreskin to it's natural position covering the glans. Just like snipping suspenders would allow loose fitting pants to fall down, snipping the frenulum would allow the foreskin to stay down.

However, the more likely scenario is that your husband had a loose circumcision leaving more shaft and foreskin remnant than what is normally done and he had formed natural adhesions between the remnant foreskin and his glans. This very painful episode was probably the doctor ripping those adhesions apart instead of letting them release normally and naturally in their own time and on their own schedule. It must have been horribly painful for him to remember it this long.

Frank


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## stirringleaf (Mar 16, 2002)

thanks frank, for your reply. you seem very knowledgable, so we want to ask you more. Dh remembers actually having his forskin cover his whole glans, just like our intact son's penis looks. then he remembers it not looking like that anymore, and doesnt remember surgery, or being cut. both your explainations seem very plausable. it was horribly painful, he says. if it is situation A does that mean he is intact or not? and could he get the foreskin to return to its natural state? would it requre surgery?


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## Frankly Speaking (May 24, 2002)

It's really hard to say for sure. From what you are saying, it sounds like he was circumcised. I know that sounds somewhat unbelievable but it is the most likely scenario. I know another man this happened to. When he was 6 years old, he was circumcised in the doctor's office with absolutely no pain relief at all. His mother was very distraught and later told him she could hear him screaming at the other end of the building. John has absolutely no recollection of it at all, not even the faintest memory.

The age of your husband indicates that he has been circumcised since "loose" circumcisions are a relatively recent introduction and previously, the "hallmark" of a "good" circumcision was to try to have the shaft skin in a stretch when the man is errect. However, there were quite a few boys who had to have skin graft surgery to replace shaft skin where the doctor got overzealous and many reports of men who had pain on erection from not having enough shaft skin. Because of these problems, many doctors have changed how they do circumcisions to try to avoid these problems. However, the loose circumcisions come with their own set of problems as well. The change to loose circumcisions is something that has only been done in the last 5-7 years so your husband is not included in that group. However, there is a possibility that the doctor who may have circumcised your husband as an infant was not well versed or practiced and didn't do it to the "standards of the day" because of fear of taking off too much. The plain and simple fact is that almost all men are born with exactly the right amount of foreskin and shaft skin and there is no "extra" for optimal sexual performance.

A couple of tests can give a good indication of whether he was actually circumcised or not. First, if he was not, there should be a slight ridge between the mucosal skin and the shaft skin. It will be right at the junction where the skin type changes from the more pinkish to the skin that goes the rest of the way down to his pubic mound. This ridge is the frenar band and is the elastic structure that keeps the foreskin opening closed around the end of the glans. It will be under the skin but should show and should be able to be felt. The other test is to stretch the skin from the glans down to the pubic mound. If that pinkish mucosal skin will stretch down to the pubic mound when he is errect, he is probably not circumcised. If he can not get it to stretch that far, he probably is circumcised.

If he can pull the skin up over his glans and it will stay there, he was probably not circumcised. If it immediately pulls back when he releases it, he probably is circumcised. The way to definitely know is to ask his mother or get his medical records where there will be an entry about what happened when he was 5 years old.

As far as returning to his natural state, if only his frenulum was clipped, yes and no. No, his foreskin will never pull itself up to cover the glans as it was designed to do but he will have all of the sensitivity he was born with and the skin system will function normally during sexual relations. After all of these years of being retracted, he won't have the stretching sexual sensations from the frenar band as it is permanently stretched out of shape like the elastic in old underwear. However, the skin system will work as it should and he and you will receive benefits of that. If he has been circumcised, he no longer has the parts to provide the sensations. However, there is a process called foreskin restoration. There is a surgical procedure that very few men have because of the expense and hassle. It takes up to 4 separate surgical procedures and the cost is approaching $40,000.00. On the other hand, there is a non-surgical procedure that requires absolutely no medical intervention at all, costs less than $100.00 and can give him many of the benefits he was born with although not all. It is a major hassle that can easily take 3-4 years to complete but in my experience, is well worth the time and effort. You can read about it here:

www.norm.org

and here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foreskinrestoration3/

Best of luck to both of you!

Frank


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