I just posted in another thread, but I wasn't sure if I might get more answers with a fresh post - so I apologize in advance for the redundancy.
Here is the gist of it - my 8 year old son has been having intermittent pain in his penis for the past few weeks. At first I brushed it off, thinking that he had somehow irritated his penis and sent him to the bath each time it bothered him. The warm water seemed to help tremendously, but it didn't eliminate the problem in the sense that it kept happening.
I let it go on for a couple of weeks, because I wasn't convinced that it was really something deeply concerning. The pain seemed to just randomly occur, and I turned up nothing on Internet searches that alarmed me. Since the baths seemed to help so much, I really continued to believe that perhaps he had irritated it and the bath would eventually flush the irritant out.
Honestly, I never realized how much I don't know about penises.
It just kept happening - maybe a couple of times a day - but no swelling, no tenderness, no redness, and no discharge. One night though, he was so distressed that I drove him to the clinic where they tested for a UTI. Here, I witnessed ballooning during urination. UTI test came back negative and the doctor looked at DS's penis (which wasn't hurting by this time), and said it looked fine and he seemed fine. Nothing to worry about.
But the pains continued. I did more online searching, and someone told me about her DS's penile pain and a lump under his foreskin that turned out to be a build up of smegma, and once that came out, he felt fine. I saw no lumps under DS's foreskin, though, but I encouraged DS to gently move his foreskin around to see if it would come back at all. I never touched it myself, but I watched him and saw absolutely no retraction happening at all - I began to worry about phimosis, because the opening of his foreskin is just a dot. I wondered if he was having erections, and the tight foreskin was causing him pain.
During one bout of pain, DS went into the bathroom and then told me that something had come out. Maybe smegma? I hoped that this meant that the pain would subside. Nope. So I took him to his pediatrician, who said he is fine.
Still, it is breaking my heart that I can't help him somehow and make the pain stop. I know not to retract him, but should I be concerned that he has not retracted at all at his age, and that he is having pain? This has been going on for weeks now.
Today, more pain. He was afraid to urinate, so I ran him a bath and had him urinate in the tub. When he stood up, there was a couple of drops of blood at the tip of his foreskin (diluted, obviously, but it alarmed me to see that pink water). I am so worried that I am not doing the right thing for him.
Help!
Here is the gist of it - my 8 year old son has been having intermittent pain in his penis for the past few weeks. At first I brushed it off, thinking that he had somehow irritated his penis and sent him to the bath each time it bothered him. The warm water seemed to help tremendously, but it didn't eliminate the problem in the sense that it kept happening.
I let it go on for a couple of weeks, because I wasn't convinced that it was really something deeply concerning. The pain seemed to just randomly occur, and I turned up nothing on Internet searches that alarmed me. Since the baths seemed to help so much, I really continued to believe that perhaps he had irritated it and the bath would eventually flush the irritant out.
Honestly, I never realized how much I don't know about penises.
It just kept happening - maybe a couple of times a day - but no swelling, no tenderness, no redness, and no discharge. One night though, he was so distressed that I drove him to the clinic where they tested for a UTI. Here, I witnessed ballooning during urination. UTI test came back negative and the doctor looked at DS's penis (which wasn't hurting by this time), and said it looked fine and he seemed fine. Nothing to worry about.
But the pains continued. I did more online searching, and someone told me about her DS's penile pain and a lump under his foreskin that turned out to be a build up of smegma, and once that came out, he felt fine. I saw no lumps under DS's foreskin, though, but I encouraged DS to gently move his foreskin around to see if it would come back at all. I never touched it myself, but I watched him and saw absolutely no retraction happening at all - I began to worry about phimosis, because the opening of his foreskin is just a dot. I wondered if he was having erections, and the tight foreskin was causing him pain.
During one bout of pain, DS went into the bathroom and then told me that something had come out. Maybe smegma? I hoped that this meant that the pain would subside. Nope. So I took him to his pediatrician, who said he is fine.
Still, it is breaking my heart that I can't help him somehow and make the pain stop. I know not to retract him, but should I be concerned that he has not retracted at all at his age, and that he is having pain? This has been going on for weeks now.
Today, more pain. He was afraid to urinate, so I ran him a bath and had him urinate in the tub. When he stood up, there was a couple of drops of blood at the tip of his foreskin (diluted, obviously, but it alarmed me to see that pink water). I am so worried that I am not doing the right thing for him.
Help!