Not sure whose advice to follow...

[alysonb]

Here's the background info... My younger ds (2) was circ'd shortly after birth, but the doctor "left him long". I later read the medical report and what it really sounded like was that he started the procedure, saw some blood and stopped because he was scared of bleeding due to my husband's blood disorder (a form of hemophilia which ds does not have). Anyway, I was told to retract it a few times a week indefinitely, which I did, until I noticed that it was getting more difficult to do. Our new pediatrician sent us to a urologist who said to treat it the same as an uncirc'd penis and basically just leave it alone and don't retract it. Our ped totally disagrees and says that I need to retract it daily or it will form adhesions or a skin bridge. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing and any advice?

[Devaskyla]

Personally, I'd listen to the urologist. How long are you supposed to be manipulating your ds' penis for...until he's 4? 6? That's really creepy advice. I don't think it would form skin bridges since the glans is healed after all this time. It might readhere, but the evidence shows that in most boys, it detaches again without any assistance when the boy would ordinarily have become retractible.

Of course, if you leave it alone & it adheres, you'll need to watch out for your pediatrician ripping the adhesions. I'd just not let him near my kid's penis.

[jessjgh1]

Originally Posted by Devaskyla

Personally, I'd listen to the urologist. How long are you supposed to be manipulating your ds' penis for...until he's 4? 6? That's really creepy advice. I don't think it would form skin bridges since the glans is healed after all this time. It might readhere, but the evidence shows that in most boys, it detaches again without any assistance when the boy would ordinarily have become retractible.

Of course, if you leave it alone & it adheres, you'll need to watch out for your pediatrician ripping the adhesions. I'd just not let him near my kid's penis.

:

Jessica

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

I would go with the urologist. I cannot immagine messing with my ds's penis that much all the time kinda squeeks me out actually. Just leave it alone and let nature do what it was ment to do. It will release on its own when it is ment to. By repeatedly retracting it is possible that scar tissue will form and cause him to have less sensitivity than he should have.

[Night_Nurse]

Personally, I think I'd follow the urologist's advice. After all, that is his/her area of expertise, not the peds. And you could always get an additional opinion from another pediatric urologist just to be sure.

[BurgundyElephant]

Leave the baby alone! I would even go as far as to find a new ped, one who is more up-to-date on proper medical care of an intact child.

[eepster]

The urologists advice is based on new research, the pediatricians advice is outdated. http://www.kidsgrowth.com/resources/...il.cfm?id=3420

[Raelynn]

I agree with all of the previous posters, just leave it alone like the urologist recommended. Continuously tearing the skin off the glans can cause a lot of damage in the long run. These will resolve themselves, just like they would had he not been circ'ed.

I would even bring in the up-to-date information to your ped.

[Yulia_R]

your ped is an ignorant d*ck!

You did get lucky with your urologist though...

http://www.kidsgrowth.com/resources/...il.cfm?id=3420

A recent study in the Journal of Urology followed 254 circumcised boys to see what happened to their penile adhesions. Only seven patients had been treated for adhesions. Despite this, the prevalence of adhesions decreased dramatically with age to:

71% of boys age ‹12 months
28% of boys ages 1-5 years old
8% of boys ages 5-9
2% ages 9-18

We agree with the conclusions of this study. Penile adhesions after circumcision normally resolve without treatment.


Penile adhesions develop after circumcision and the incidence decreases with patient age. Although there is debate on whether to lyse these adhesions manually, our findings suggest that adhesions resolve without treatment. Based on our results we do not recommend lysing penile adhesions, except perhaps those involving the circumcision line.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...&dopt=Abstract


Post on Mothering.com about adhesoins
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=772586

[perspective]

Originally Posted by alysonb

Here's the background info... My younger ds (2) was circ'd shortly after birth, but the doctor "left him long". I later read the medical report and what it really sounded like was that he started the procedure, saw some blood and stopped because he was scared of bleeding due to my husband's blood disorder (a form of hemophilia which ds does not have). Anyway, I was told to retract it a few times a week indefinitely, which I did, until I noticed that it was getting more difficult to do. Our new pediatrician sent us to a urologist who said to treat it the same as an uncirc'd penis and basically just leave it alone and don't retract it. Our ped totally disagrees and says that I need to retract it daily or it will form adhesions or a skin bridge. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing and any advice?

Well in a traditional circumcision, the foreskin is ripped from the glans. The reason you dont retract a uncut baby's foreskin is because you dont want to break that seal. Now if that seal has already been broken (unlike in its natural state) dirt and bacteria will get in it, because its open. Also since that seperation took place, the membrane is raw and there is a REAL possibility of skin bridges and such to occur so its important to retract so that things heal properly.

Now, all of that means nothing IF the doctor did not seperate the foreskin from the glans. If you are not 100% sure that has happened yet, ask your doctor. (If you have fully retracted his foreskin already, that means it has)

[alysonb]

From what I could get out of the whole five minutes that the urologist spent with me, our former pediatrician (the one who did the procedure) separated the foreskin from the glans but he thought that that was all that he did.

My current ped wasn't sure what to do which is why she sent us to see the urologist. She says that she doesn't usually do circ's but refers them to a surgeon, so I don't doubt that her info is out of date. If I brought her the new info she'd probably be very interested in it.

Anyway, thanks for the advice. I think I'll just leave his parts alone.

[Raelynn]

Originally Posted by perspective

Well in a traditional circumcision, the foreskin is ripped from the glans. The reason you dont retract a uncut baby's foreskin is because you dont want to break that seal. Now if that seal has already been broken (unlike in its natural state) dirt and bacteria will get in it, because its open. Also since that seperation took place, the membrane is raw and there is a REAL possibility of skin bridges and such to occur so its important to retract so that things heal properly.

Now, all of that means nothing IF the doctor did not seperate the foreskin from the glans. If you are not 100% sure that has happened yet, ask your doctor. (If you have fully retracted his foreskin already, that means it has)

I have to respectfully disagree. This would be the same as if an intact baby was retracted by a doctor. You still just leave it alone and dont retract, even if the "seal" was broken.

[SammyJr]

Originally Posted by alysonb

From what I could get out of the whole five minutes that the urologist spent with me, our former pediatrician (the one who did the procedure) separated the foreskin from the glans but he thought that that was all that he did.

If that's all he did, your son is intact. Leave it alone like your urologist says.

[Yulia_R]

Originally Posted by perspective

Also since that seperation took place, the membrane is raw and there is a REAL possibility of skin bridges and such to occur so its important to retract so that things heal properly.

perspective, you are giving a VERY wrong and possibly damaging advice to this lady. advice like that is a HUGE responsibility, it can permanently damage her little one. please don't give advices if you are not 100% sure, or at least make a note that you aren't 100% sure.

regardless of whether her doctor ripped her son's adhesions off or not, doing it further may cause serious damage (permanent nerve damage, scar tissue growth, trauma, infections, etc.)

Adhesions should NOT be ripped off. Period. Even if it happened, they will heal and then retract on its own when time comes.
yulia.

[Daisyuk]

Originally Posted by perspective

Well in a traditional circumcision, the foreskin is ripped from the glans. The reason you dont retract a uncut baby's foreskin is because you dont want to break that seal. Now if that seal has already been broken (unlike in its natural state) dirt and bacteria will get in it, because its open. Also since that seperation took place, the membrane is raw and there is a REAL possibility of skin bridges and such to occur so its important to retract so that things heal properly.

Now, all of that means nothing IF the doctor did not seperate the foreskin from the glans. If you are not 100% sure that has happened yet, ask your doctor. (If you have fully retracted his foreskin already, that means it has)

NO NO NO perspective you have that VERY wrong, and your advice is likely to cause a LOT of damage to the penis of any child whose mother takes it. A retracted foreskin can and does heal back to the surface of the glans, as it tries to repair the damage. Once it has healed it is the same as it would have been had it not been retracted and dirt is NOT going to get under there. Why on earth would you think that recreating a wound is going to be cleaner and/or healthier? Or indeed that the resulting scar tissue on the glans is going to be better than a skin bridge?

As you can see by the papers others have quoted, "adhesions" release on their own, the same as they would if the child had not been interfered with in the first place. I don't know what it is with the American need to constantly rip and manipulate a child's penis, but it's really creeping me out, it seems like the urge is there to do it for YEARS, it's not enough to slice them up in the first place, they have to continue messing with it long after infancy, UGH.

I don't know where you got your information from, but you should go and correct it if you can, it's this sort of misinformation that causes infections and the resulting (re)circumcision to "cure" it.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

I don't know where you got your information from, but you should go and correct it if you can, it's this sort of misinformation that causes infections and the resulting (re)circumcision to "cure" it.

I agree 100% you need to fix your information it is way off base and if someone were to read it and use it they would be causing major harm to their LO.

Another way to think of it. You cut your finger badly instead of leaving it alone your repeatedly rip it open. What will happen is you will continue to have a raw wound that is more than likely going to get infected over and over and be left with a nasty scar that has loss of feeling. The same goes with the foreskin and glans if you keep riping the 2 apart you are going to keep it raw and introduce bacteria causing infections and major scar tissue.

If left alone the foreskin will heal back to the glans and release on their own when the time comes. What causes skin bridges is repeat riping apart of adhesions. Sooner or later it will heal to were it cannot be riped apart and you will be left with a bridge. If on the other hand you dont keep making raw spots that heal together it will heal then release.

[phdmama06]

I agree with the other posters who advised you to leave it alone. It sounds like he may even still be intact if the pedi (doing the circ) didn't complete the procedure. Definitely listen to your urologist!

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

If all he did was rip the foreskin loose from the glans he is definatly still intact. Is there any way you can talk to the ped that did it and see if any skin was removed at all?

At least then you can tell your ds how lucky he was not to be circed.

[perspective]

Originally Posted by Yulia_R

perspective, you are giving a VERY wrong and possibly damaging advice to this lady. advice like that is a HUGE responsibility, it can permanently damage her little one. please don't give advices if you are not 100% sure, or at least make a note that you aren't 100% sure.

regardless of whether her doctor ripped her son's adhesions off or not, doing it further may cause serious damage (permanent nerve damage, scar tissue growth, trauma, infections, etc.)

Adhesions should NOT be ripped off. Period. Even if it happened, they will heal and then retract on its own when time comes.
yulia.

All the information I have, I get from talking to uncut guys, so I am assuming it is correct. Now from what I understood is when you rip apart the glans from the head, your leaving cuts and skin that needs to heal. I have a story from one mothering board where a mother left it alone afterward casing the foreskin to scar and bind with the head of the glans.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

It is supposed to bind back with the glans that is how it heals. If they reach adulthood and it hasnt released THEN they can have it fixed if they choose. But by repeated riping apart you are causing the glans to loose feeling because of scar tissue. Not to mention the pain and trauma to the LO who is having his genitals assaulted daily.

Adult intact men and babys who intact are 2 totally different things.