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I’m finally getting circumcised later this month as a 24 year old to treat mild phimosis and severe frenulum breve. Hoping this will give me the ability to have some semblance of a normal sex life. Has anyone had this procedure as a teen/adult?
I had phimosis and frenulum breve. I was completely unable to retract my foreskin. But instead of circumcision, I opted for a prescription topical steroid cream that loosens the skin. After applying that regularly for a few months, I was finally able to retract my foreskin at about age 15. It was still pretty tight for a while, but it kept getting better over the years (I didn't have to keep applying the cream, though). By my late teens to 20s, I was completely functional and everything was working as it should be, with no complaints.
By the way, when I was first able to retract my foreskin at 15, I was so incredibly sensitive that I would wince in pain if water touched my glans in the shower. I think that illustrates just how sensitive the penis is when it has a foreskin to protect it for the first dozen or so years of life. It's not as sensitive as that anymore, but it's still too sensitive to comfortably touch with, say, dry fingers. That's a good thing.
Anyway, if it's not too late, I would definitely recommend trying steroid creams first. There's no harm in it, and there's presumably no urgency to resolve this in weeks rather than, say, months, right? The foreskin is just so amazing; it'd be tragic to lose it.
This is interesting, I was under the impression that steroid creams could not treat frenulum breve. My phimosis itself is actually relatively mild, I can retract with no issue, it just pinches the head when I'm erect and doesn't slide up and down during sex. The frenulum breve is much worse and causes most of my issues. Your case seems worse than mine (unless your frenulum is longer) so if you solved yours with creams and stretching maybe that's a safe route for me. Is there any downside to trying a less invasive approach first? Just thinking out loud here but I guess I could try:
In this order:
stretching exercises
stretching exercises with steroid creams (the steroid concentration is quite low and shouldn’t affect my body outside of making the skin stretchier)
frenuloplasty (where they reshape the frenulum to lengthen it slightly)
frenulectomy (where they just remove it)
circumcision as a last resort if that fails after several months
I certainly can't think of any downsides of trying the less invasive options first. It may be that your frenulum breve is worse than mine was, I don't know. I'd try to find a urologist that seems sympathetic to wanting to remain as intact as possible and see what they think about the feasibility of these options given your particular anatomy.
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