Greetings PDI Warriors,

Welcome to the July 2011 issue of the PD Institute Newsletter. This newsletter will use a different format than any other we have used previously. It will also be a bit longer than usual only because we have a lot more information to send to you.

I will first tell you about a totally revised and improved Dupuytren Contracture Institute website. After that you can read a discussion from a brother PDI Warrior who has been kind and generous enough to write a detailed and very helpful explanation how he uses moist heat in his PD treatment plan. He has also included a personal report about his progress while working to solve his Peyronie’s disease distortion.

New DCI Website

Many of our readers not only have Peyronie’s disease, but also deal with Dupuytren contracture (DC) in one or both hands. DC is a soft tissue problem in which an excess of collagen material is deposited in the palm of the hand, similar to the way PD affects the shaft.

Soon after starting the Peyronie’s Disease Institute website in 2002 I began receiving emails from men reporting their Dupuytren contracture was also improving – sometimes faster and sooner than their Peyronie’s disease. And so I became involved with DC treatment only because so many PD men were asking questions and needing help with this related problem of the hand.

For many years the men and women who had Dupuytren contracture ordered their therapy products from the same place Peyronie’s disease therapy products were sold on the PDI website. The new DCI website now offers our famous treatment technique articles that are inserted into each order – or “stuffers” – that are written specifically for DC; before we just included information about Peyronie’s therapy in a Dupuytrens order and told these folks to apply that information to their hand problem.

The new DCI website has a “Hand Lump Forum” where I post new Dupuytren articles several times a month. Instead of showing a list of dates when prior posts were written, we now simply list all titles of these posts so you can go down the list to select any DC topic that interests you. This makes selecting and reading Dupuytren information much easier and faster.

The new DCI website also has an ongoing “Ask Dr. Herazy…” Q&A blog section. It is easier to use than the prior method of posting questions in the PDI blog. It displays in one long list all past questions that I have answered. All you have to do is to click on the title of the question and you are immediately taken to the full question and full answer from Dr. Herazy.

Lastly, the new DCI website has it own storefront in which woman can now be more comfortable purchasing their Dupuytren treatment products.

Please visit www.dupuytrens-contracture.com to see all the improved features of the new DCI website. 

 

Guest author – Insights and ideas from a Brother PDI Warrior

I am so pleased to present this article written by a very insightful and hard-working man who has made great improvement in his PD. He has some very special limitations in his PD treatment plan, since his digestive system will not tolerate the high enzyme dosage treatment that most men use. For this reason he has had a slower path to recovery, and has faced and solved many problems of treating his PD with Alternative Medicine. He has worked harder and longer than most men, but he is winning against PD anyway.

By using his head he has experimented within his plan like a mad scientist, trying many different dosage combinations until he has found what works for him. He has probably asked me more questions and sent more emails than anyone has in almost 10 years of overseeing the PDI website.

Like most men who have PD he prefers to not have his name published with his article. He is a great guy who I respect because he is dedicated to his recovery and is willing to do whatever it takes to beat PD – a man after my own heart.

Please read the thoughts and insights of a real PDI Warrior in these two sections he has written for us:

Enhanced Hot Moist Soak Therapy

Hot moist soaking is one of the most powerful therapies one can use in the treatment of Peyronies Disease. The basic benefit of this therapy is the softening of the scar tissue and relaxing of the penis will allow for better physical comfort and enzymatic action in dissolving of the plaque. The most effective healing can occur when the penis is relaxed in the absence of physiological and emotional stress and when the individual is well rested and at optimum health maintaining a proper body pH alkaline level. Any potential effective therapy offered must be above all practical, economical, convenient and even pleasurable. It also must have immediate beneficial results so as to motivate, encourage and comfort the sufferer.

Dr Herazy of PD Institute has recommended in his materials on line and in his “Peyronie’s Disease Handbook” the use of hot moist towels before application of external products (Super CP Serum, Vitamin E and DMSO) for better penetration into the tissue and plaque. Ideally, this should be done twice a day, first thing in the morning and sometime in the evening. Dr. Herazy also encourages the technique of manual stretching which would be very helpful if practiced for several minutes before and after soaking. He also advocates placing a hot water bottle over the groin area when at rest such as watching television or reading. These practices no doubt are helpful in the overall comprehensive treatment scheme Dr. Herazy advocates which includes external application of products, manual exercises and an aggressive internal supplement program.

Another method of applying moist heat to the penis would, of course, simply be a hot bath. When showering, it is also convenient to cup a wash rag underneath the penis and let the stream of hot water fill for several minutes. If time does not permit for a long soak, just wrapping a hot wet wash cloth around the penis will do. As the heat dissipates, just rewet and apply again. Do this 3 or 4 times and then apply the external products. It is probably a good time to apply the hot soak and external products after working strenuously or exercising after a thorough washing.

The problem with a hot water bottle is the task of filling it and the rapid heat dissipation from the bottle, thus diminishing its effectiveness over a short period of time.

Another method to improve the penetration and soaking time length is to employ the use of a small dry/wet heating pad (12” X 15”) that is guaranteed waterproof. The procedure with the heating pad is the same as above. Place a towel on a bed to lie on and capture moisture, wrap a hot moist hand towel about the penis, spread a towel over the whole pelvic area without folding it, apply the heating pad set at medium to high heat, place a pillow over the pad to concentrate the heat and lie back and enjoy the sensation. This is also a good time to engage in your kegel exercises, EFI, meditation, prayer or listening to soothing music. The heating pad will maintain the temperature of the soak for as long as you can devote time to it.

Dr. Herazy recommends a minimum of 15 minutes, but this method would enable you to continue the soak for much longer periods of time. Morning sessions may have to be shortened if a work schedule requires it, but a person may have more time in the evenings. Bed time is an excellent time to apply this, although you may want to reduce the temperature setting and set an alarm clock as you will mostly likely fall asleep. I believe this therapy, besides softening the plaque, does much to improve circulation and promote stimulation as in more frequent and firmer nocturnal erections.

The heating pad can also be used in the same way as the hot water bottle without the moist towels by just laying it over one’s lap or placing it between the legs in the groin area when reclining or sleeping. I have slept many nights in this manner and always woke up feeling much more comfortable and the scar tissue more pliable. I believe it also helps to ease the pain often associated with PD.

I personally have made progress with this method and this information should be encouraging for those individuals who are hypersensitive to or have low tolerance for the recommended supplements as I am or simply can’t afford them. 

My PD Progress Report 6-11-11

I think the best way for me to quantify my progress is to give a brief history of my experience with PD. My condition reached its worst stage during 2009 after several years of trying several remedies suggested by the urological medical community including “waiting to see what happens” (mistake), ESWT (mistake) and Verapamil crème (mistake). I am quite certain now that none of these measures helped my situation and quite possibly inhibited healing or worsened my condition.

My peyronies scarring was in multiple locations, the worse being a large mass near the base of the penis extending deep into left side of the groin. This had the effect of “waisting” or narrowing the girth and “caving in” the left side of the penis shaft. This resulted in an approximate 75% sharp angle to the left. I also had plaque on top just behind the head which resulted in about a 40% curvature upward. Needless to say, I was sexually disabled and vulnerable to re-injury even from simply sleeping wrong. The worse of my experience though, has been the constant mild to severe pain from the left side of the groin.

I believe any sort of stress, especially emotional stress, can cause your ph level of your body to become acidic which is not conducive to healing at all. Diet, of course, is a major factor in maintaining a proper alkaline ph level. I have tried to adhere to the PD diet recommended in the PD handbook as well as eat according to my blood type which is Type O.

My personal and professional life is very stressful and demanding which has not been very helpful either in overcoming this problem. Nonetheless, in 2010, I focused on other therapies that did not involve internal supplements. I started seeing some encouraging improvement that year, but the real progress did not begin until I stopped using the Verapamil crème late in the year and developed better techniques for stretching and the hot moist soaks which I have shared with Dr. Herazy.

I am happy to report now, that I have very little PD pain except for occasion flare-ups when I get careless or something. Curvature is much improved with only about a 15% pull to the left. The “waisting” or “caved” section on the left is mostly gone with the shaft assuming its natural shape. There is still a fair size lump near the base on the left but it has narrowed and become very sinewy and pliable. The curvature up on the top is down to about 20% and the plaque has also narrowed to a slender ridge running down the center. Sexual intercourse would probably be possible, but maybe too risky at this point.

Progress is slow but definitely moving in the right direction. I am still researching other therapies and experimenting with different supplement doses to see which doses are acceptable to me and which could speed up my rate of recovery.

CXXXXX BXXXXX

6-11-11

 

And, so, there you have someone else’s ideas how to use moist heat within a large PD plan. He went from a 75% bend to the left down to 15% to the left, and a 40% upward bend to a 20% upward bend, in about 18 months. All of this, of course, is accompanied by marked reduction of his extensive multiple scar formations.

By the way, I do not agree with expressing a curvature by using percentages, such as using the “75% sharp angle to the left” and the rest of it. I really am not sure what a 75% or a 15% curve is. I think we are all better off expressing the distortions by using the more traditional approach of measuring in degrees of curve. We all know what a 45 degree and a 90 degree curve is, and with a little effort we can get more specific by actually measuring for 15, 35, or 70 degree curves so we all know for sure what we are saying.

This is not easy work, but the rewards are great. Regaining lost sexual ability, regaining size, being able to feel like the proud man you were before you ever heard of Peyronie’s disease, the thrill of knowing for a fact that your scar is slowing falling apart, the confidence of being totally in charge of your PD treatment plan, all make it easy to forget the work when you earn your reward of recovery.

Please stay focused to your therapy plan, read the PDI website forward and backward, and ask questions about treatment when you are in doubt.

See you in the cool month of August when my 6^th grandchild will be born.

Regards,

Theodore R. Herazy, DC, LAc