At this point, verapamil had failed completely...and I was out of options other than surgery. I heard about the Xiaflex trial (collagenase enzyme to dissolve the plaque via injection), but it filled up with patients already. So, I thought I would wait for Xiaflex to be approved before risking surgery while using traction and taking Trental. During the 3 years I waited, my plaques virtually disappeared. However, my curve and narrowing got much worse. My ED got worse. My doctor also said I was no longer a candidate for xiaflex (there was nowhere to inject since the plaques were gone). The damage had been done by PD. PD destroys elastin too, and it can also scar your septum, where xiaflex cannot be injected... maybe if Xiaflex was already out in 2010, I could have been saved from surgery - but this was not an option. It was only available to plastic surgeons who did hand surgery - and they could not use it off label. It would have cost 26k to use it off label anyway (with no guarantee of success)...so I was not able to get it off label.
This is how the PD progressed up until the surgery. Psychologically, this messed with me pretty bad. Imagine 3.7\"
Girth...
There are 3 surgeries available to people with Peyronie\'s Disease. I had # 1.
1. Plication / Nesbit / Modified Nesbit / 16 Dot
These all have the same principle with slightly different approaches. They shorten the longer side. The damage in my penis was mostly on top...so the top shortened by PD to 5.2\" but the bottom was still 6\" or so. Hence, it curved. So, by tucking / cutting small ellipses of tissue from the bottom and suturing them together, you get a straight penis. You don\'t really risk ED or sensation loss. You do risk size loss. I lost 0.5 cm. I might be able to get it back with traction.
2. Grafting
This is what Miracle8x7 had. You need to have strong erections going into grafting surgery because the risk of ED is significant, and I did not have good erectile quality at all. Also, you need a well defined plaque to excise. Finally, you need a VERY good surgeon or you can risk sensation loss, size loss (it happens with grafting too) and ED. It\'s much more complicated than plication. It takes 2x as long in the operating room, at least. The other thing is that my damaged tissue was on top, right under the neurovascular bundle. This is the riskiest area of the penis to deal with - so doing grafting right below that risks sensation loss more than in other areas. This is the most common area for plaque, so surgeons know how to deal with the nerves...but it\'s still a bigger risk than plication.
3. Penile implant
This is the point of no return...once you do this, you can never have natural erections for the rest of your life. Since these need to be replaced every 10 years or so, I was looking at 3-5 implants for the rest of my life...and never having a natural
Erection again. They do help fill out your
Girth and restore some size, especially when combined with grafting...but it all depends on where your damage is and how bad it is. You could lose a lot of length with these too.
I went for plication for 2 main reasons. 1 - you can see my entire penis starts to get narrower in the entire shaft - over time. I did not have 1 localized narrow segment that could be repaired. A surgeon cannot remove tissue from the entire length of the penis without a huge chance of ED. There was a possibility that I may have had to have a very large excision. If I had grafting in 2011, it might have been successful at restoring
Girth...though it\'s hard to say because my disease progressed. 2 - I had ED. I had a 5/10
Erection anytime I did not take viagra. In the last year, viagra only got me to 8/10. I am not happy I lost even more size, but fortunately it was limited to 0.5 cm. In a perfect world, I would have had grafting surgery and regained
Girth and length, but the ED risk seemed too high. I still wonder if I did the wrong thing. Maybe I only had a small area of scar tissue (my last ultrasound showed a tiny plaque) - and if it was taken out - everything would be normal. My doctor didn\'t seem to agree...and he has done 100s of these cases. After reading this board & learning about
PMMA, I figured I could just do plication and then get
PMMA to get my
Girth back. Traction may help with length.
Here\'s how things are now...by the way, this was the most painful experience I have ever gone through - and I broke my nose and jaw (and had surgery on both with screws in my jaw). No amount of norco even helped me. I started taking gabapentin with norco and soma and that seemed to at least make me somewhat ok...but I was basically in a constant state of feeling like my
Dick was being skinned alive for a few days. It still hurts at the incision line, mostly. I know I get erections at night now because I wake up in some serious pain every time they happen. I have no sensation loss, and the swelling didn\'t linger too much past day 10, though it will take 4-6 weeks to be normal...and maybe 6 months not to have pain. I am scared that I will have pain on erections due to the internal knots, but I can\'t worry about it too much now. Here\'s the latest pic:
So...from here... I need to heal up and start using traction after 4-6 weeks post op. Then, in about 4-6 months, I can start
PMMA.
Anyway, if you have any questions, I\'d be happy to answer them. I\'ve really gone through 4 years of hell and was stuck there until I started reading this board. It might sound like I am putting too much faith in
PMMA - but it is the ONLY thing that offered any hope in the last 4 years of total misery & having every doctor tell me my
Dick is \"normal\" and \"average\" - and just deal with it (which is bs - 4\"
Girth is not average). So anyway, this board makes me feel normal too - since some of you crazy dudes START with 5.5\"
Girth and want
PMMA to be 7\" but that\'s fine. I want a big(er)
Dick again & that\'s why I\'m here. The 4 year nightmare is over...I lost a huge chunk of my life (and
Dick) and am still single because of it... and now it\'s time to get back to normal. Woo hoo. I feel like I just wrote a research paper.