He's 3 and won't pee!

[New_Natural_Mom]

Mamas, I need your help.  DS is 3.5 and is really starting to worry me.  He is not potty trained yet.  We are working on it, and sometimes he will sit on the potty, but so far it isn't happening.  Also, DS was sick with hand, foot, and mouth this past week.  The last 2 days he has been (I'm guessing) holding his pee.  He will pee like only 1 or 2 times in an entire day regardless of how many fluids he is taking in.  We can give him 40 oz of liquid and he will just. not. pee.  I called the ped on call and he just said "what goes in eventually comes out" which wasn't very helpful.  This morning he was screaming all morning that his penis hurt and "owie owie owie" to the point where we were in the car on the way to the ER when he finally peed (a massive amount, through the diaper and all over everything - which we were very encouraging about so he didn't feel shamed or anything, I was just happy he peed!)  So we didn't take him to the ER (since we are 5 hours from home and in a strange city).

Sorry for the long disjointed saga.  His penis has been red a few times lately, and once when he was complaining and I checked the diaper it looked like it had retracted so the head was visible (and red!).  I wiped it down with a wipe and he said it felt better.  I don't know what to do.  It can't be good to hold the pee in.  It can't be good that he is screaming owie.  Aside from the slight redness at the tip of the penis there are no other weird signs. 

I know he hasn't been manually retracted by anyone and it doesn't look to be infected or anything.

HELP!!!

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

My guess is maybe a bit of separation going on causing a burn when he urinates. Have you tried letting him pee in a cup of water or in the bath? That can be very helpful to make the sting go away.

You mentioned that his glans looked really red so I wanted to mention that the normal color of the intact glans is often a very bright red/purple color and that is totally normal.