Dr. Herazy,   Firstly, I would like to thank you and this community for even being here to help those who suffer with penile curvature.  Finding information online regarding Peyronie's disease has been very tricky and even an anxious affair due to the condition's unnecessarily embarrassing nature. Anyway, a little background: I am a 23-year-old male who has had a healthy sex life for the last seven years. While dating my previous girlfriend, we had some bouts with sexual difficulty, mostly on her end due to numerous urinary tract infections and her mental condition; she has been on anti-anxiety and antidepressants for some years now. This made her very self-conscious during sex and, admittedly, other factors like privacy created tension. I have never experienced this before and thought something was wrong with me, and for some stupid reason, I wondered if my penis was somehow inadequate. So, I looked into enhancement options and discovered the murky world of jelqing and stretching.

I followed the exercise regiment very closely, with my workouts beginning in February of 2012 and ending at the end of October of 2012. I made sure to warm up every time with a hot wrap and never pushed myself too far, or so I thought. I discovered that my penis grew in length and girth, going from about 5.5 inches erect to 6.5 inches; flaccid, my penis has always been about one inch, no joke. Now, it is usually two but often three inches in length when totally flaccid. My ex at the time noticed it and was shocked I managed to change the size and shape of my penis. I was taking L-Arginine, L-Lysine, and Zinc on my workout days, including Pygeum Africanum, Lecithin, Flaxseed Oil, Fish Oil, Super B Complex, and a solid Multivitamin. But during the last week of October, after we had broken up, I think I went too hard and stretched too far, feeling an uneasy sensation in my penis. It's important to note that I had noticed the progression of a curve for months preceding this but with no pain. It is also important to note that I have always had a slight curve to the left, as several photos taken years ago prove.

Anyway, after this weird feeling from stretching, I finished my workout and decided to take some days off. But the pain got worse and I noticed a small bruise/discoloration and what appeared to be a reddish stretch mark running about two inches on my penis. So, I scheduled an appointment to see a urologist. I saw him and he said I essentially “sprained” something or caused a microtear near the glans of my penis. He told me to abstain from sexual activity for six to eight weeks. He didn't feel any plaque and said that he couldn't diagnosis Peyronie's because there wasn't significant curvature or plaque. While I didn't exactly abstain as much as I should have, I did mostly stop masturbating for weeks on end.

The pain is now completely gone but the discoloration and stretch mark (maybe inflamed vein) are still there, though they seem to have faded a bit. I am now living in Chicago and have scheduled an appointment with Dr. Levine for March 1st. I need some kind of closure on this; I need to know if I have to start treatment or maybe I just have a congenital curvature. The curve hasn't increased since my injury and, as stated above, I noticed the enhanced penile curvature while flaccid months before my injury. While erect, there's not much of a difference between the way my penis looks now and a few years ago when I was sixteen. The only difference is the discoloration/bruise, stretch mark/inflamed vein, and a bigger, more curved flaccid penis.

I am currently taking a Multivitamin, L-Arginine, CoQ-10, Acetyl L-Carnitine, and Vitamin E. I also was using Bio-Oil and Cocoa Butter, but have cut back significantly; I liked how smooth it made my unit feel. I have continued sexual activity with no pain and no loss of erectile function. Based on what you all know and what I have told you, can you point me in the right direction? Can you give me advice? My current girlfriend and ex have been very supportive through all of this, including my brother, best friend, and mother. I just want some kind of pointers and opinions; it can be quite suffocating with everyone telling you “you're going to be fine” or “you're overreacting.” This is a serious condition and I am not sure where to turn. Dr. Levine has me scheduled for an ultrasound the morning of our appointment so he can check it out before meeting with me. I seriously hope there is no scar tissue or, if there is, it is something I can deal with. I have grown fond of my curved flaccid penis and don't mind it; life is too short to dwell and panic about these things as long as I can have a functional sex life. Please. And thanks in advance for reading my story and any opinions. It means a lot!

Greetings,

Thank you for your detailed report and  insightful commentary concerning your experience with jelqing and penis stretching.

In many posts I have written about the dangers of forced penis stretching: for example please see I think I have Peyronie’s disease from jelqing. What should I do?  Too many men take a cavalier attitude about remodeling their penis to Adonis proportions.  The websites that sell the books and tapes attempt to support the idea that all problems of low self-esteem and difficulty with female relationships will simply disappear with a sausage-like member tucked in below the belt.  Life is perfect for men who have an unusually large penis.  They do not discuss the many problems and tragedies that occur with these strategies of forced stretching.  The jelqing websites try to create the idea that the penis can be squeezed and molded like a slab of clay can be tugged and strangled into an exaggerated size to please a lady or gratify a weak ego.  When penis tissue is taken forcefully and repeatedly beyond a certain point of limitation it will suddenly fail.

At this point you can only be certain that you have a bruise or micro-tear of the external tissue of the shaft.  You might be one of the luckiest guys in the world to only have a superficial injury, and not a deeper problem in the shaft at the level of the tunica albuginea; if it turns out that you have injured the tunica you are perhaps a step closer to having a case of Peyronie's disease.  Even so, with injury to the tunica and an early case of Peyronies to deal with, about half of these cases repair or reverse on their own without outside intervention – spontaneous recovery is the medical term for self healing. This is mentioned so that you can appreciate the gravity of what you have done and the position you are in at the moment.  

When you wrote that you “…  never pushed myself too far, or so I thought,”  you made a critical point about jelqing that gets to the heart of the craziness about this brutal practice. Did you ever watch a movie in which the bomb squad is called for help to defuse or take apart a complicated explosive device?  The tension and drama of those scenes where the bomb wires are being cut is based on the person never knowing if he is cutting the correct wire or in the correct sequence until it is too late.  The trick of taking apart the bomb is that you can be doing it correctly when everything is going well, until the moment you make a mistake and the bomb and you blow up.  Jelqing is not much different.  You can think you are doing it correctly and safely, until you make a mistake and injure your penis to cause a problem like Peyronie's disease.  Who knows how far to go until after you have gone too far?  Who knows how hard to squeeze and stretch, until after you have squeezed and stretched too much?  Everything can go well until after everything does badly, when the whole jelqing idea blows up in your face.

Based upon what you have written, I suspect that you have injured yourself enough to have caused Peyronie's disease.  I am lead to this conclusion by your statement, “… I had noticed the progression of a curve for months preceding this but with no pain. “  By this you say that for months your penis was becoming curved and yet you continued to jelq for months.   Since I have not examined you I can only speculate, although you will learn in time if I am correct or not.  I further suspect that you do not have at this time a curved penis when erect only because your condition is still too early and you are in the stage where the plaque has not yet formed the telltale Peyronie's scar that is far more capable of causing penile curvature.  Further based upon what you have written, “While I didn't exactly abstain as much as I should have, I did mostly stop masturbating for weeks on end, ” even when the doctor told you to abstain from sexual activity you did not.  Not only did you not stop having intercourse, you only reduced masturbating. You need to read a bit about the subject of hedonism.   

If you do not develop Peyronie's disease as a result of your immaturity and lack of self-respect, and I hope you do not, it will be a miracle.  Please try to use this experience as a way to learn something not only to learn about the dangers of jelqing and Peyronie's disease, but more so to learn about yourself and what aspects of your personality are in need of growth and maturity.

If it does turn out that you have an incipient case of Peyronie's disease, please consider that there is much you can do to assist your body to heal and repair the problem.  If half of the men who develop Peyronie's disease eventually heal it on their own without assistance and their penile curvature goes away on its own, there is the possibility you can assist your recovery over Peyronie's disease  by using information found on the PDI website.

Good luck to you, sir.