steroid cream to retract foreskin?

Sorry to hear about your son's problems but there is one problem he doesn't have and that's a tight foreskin.

It's tight because it's supposed to be tight. That's the way young boys are supposed to be and that natural and normal condition shouldn't be interfered with or you can cause problems more than what he already has. The foreskin opening is surrounded by a band of tissue that keeps it closed to protect the inner preputial space. In young boys, the band is comprised of non-elastic tissue and trying to stretch it open will cause the formation of scar tissue that will not be elastic and will prevent retraction later. This condition is called "acquired phimosis" or 'pathological phimosis" and may require circumcision to resolve it. When the time for your son's foreskin to retract comes, this band of tissue will be replaced with a band of elastic tissue and he will be normally retractile. You can not rush the process and only his body will know when its time for this to happen.

You should also forget that steroid cream. It's betamethesone .05% cream and it's for adults, not children. While there are no negative effects of the cream, there are definitely negative effects of trying to prematurely achieve retraction. If you could take your son off of antibiotics when he is retractile, you can take him off of them before he is retractile. It will make no difference. With the moderate case of reflux your son had, (has?) I suspect he has already out grown it any way. The foreskin has nothing to do with blood in the urine, absolutely nothing!

Frank

Thank you for your quick reply!!!

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I understand that trying to retract a foreskin manually will cause damage. Is there similar damage from the steroid cream?

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What are the negative effects?

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Can you tell me more? How do you know? (I'm not meaning to sound confrontational - I have an appointment tomorrow with our GP to discuss these issues and I want to make sure I have my facts straight and my position strong.)

Thank you!

For blood to be caused by the foreskin it would have to be bleeding itself and I really dont see how that is the case here. I would make the dr tell you exactly how he thinks the foreskin could possibly be making blood still show up in his urine it just dont make sence.

The issues of retraction before nature intends it with the cream is that it can cause him to develope pathalogica phamosis were the foreskin will not retract because of scare tissue. Like Yoshua said you are still essentially ripping the foreskin off the glans by making the skin more pliable so that it is more stretchy. Once you stop using the cream the foreskin will more than likely tighten back up to protected the glans and then u will be back were u started. The foreskin is there to protect the glans and it does that job best by not being messed with. Repeated forced retraction before it happens on its own can cause major damage and should never be done for any reason. Including cathiters. I am assuming that you had a knowledgable person do the cath on your son when it was needed and he was never retracted. As it is not needed even when doing a cath.

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You don't have to wait until he retracts to change his treatment.
You can take him off the antibiotics whenever you want to. Now I am not saying to say phooey on proper treatment of your son. Just ask questions and do more research on long term antibiotic use to prevent UTIs and ask your doctor to look into it too.
My sister's son has reflux and was on antibiotics when he was one year old until yeast drove her insane and then she said that's it, no more antibiotics. She talked to the doctor about it and was surprised to find that the data supporting the use of antibiotics is not so solid.

Good Luck

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No, the steroid cream is very safe in itself.

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Two things. First, it can permanently damage the preputial sphincter and cause a case of acquired or pathological phimosis and second, it can open the preputial space up to opportunistic pathogens resulting in infections.

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Any blood from the foreskin would be insignificant, just spotting on the diaper. He needs to look deeper, at the kidneys or another source within the body. He just needs to forget that your son has a foreskin. He's using your son's foreskin as a scapegoat to cover his poor diagnostic capabilities and lack of knowledge of the uro-genital system.

Frank