2 weeks out

On Thursday I had a 2-week follow-up with Dr. Kramer. The good news is all seems to be mending well with my penile implant. One of the primary concerns with implanting a penile prosthesis is the onset of infection. Obviously precautions are taken to prevent this during surgery, and the device itself of course is kept sterile until the time of implant. Even so, infection still sets in about 3% of the time. It’s reportedly more likely to occur in diabetics, which happily, I am not. The fix for this unfortunately is complete removal of the device, because apparently a biofilm can form around it that can harbor and protect bacteria, making antibiotic treatments ineffective.

During my overnight stay in the hospital after having my penile prosthesis implanted, I received an antibiotic intravenously and then was prescribed a week’s worth of an antibiotic to be taken orally. This is pretty much standard preventative procedure. I was happy to hear that Dr. Kramer detected no signs of infection during his examination. He advised me that normally we would know by now if there was going to be a problem, so hopefully that’s the end of infection concerns.

My incision is pretty much healed, swelling has gone down considerably and bruising is now entirely gone. I do have a bit of a hematoma in the scrotum, but that will dissipate with time. That said however, I still experience a fair amount of discomfort. The thing is, even in the flaccid state, a penis with a prosthesis will feel stiffer than it did before the implant. The days of the little guy playing Mr. Turtle are definitely over. And there won't be much shrinkage in cold water. LOL.

At any rate, this results in feeling sorta like having a constant erection. As any guy knows, after a while, a penis that is erect for an extended period of time begins to ache. This is similar to what I feel. And because my penis is now stiffer than before, I need to wear underwear to keep the head of my penis from rubbing against the inside of my trousers, which is extremely irritating. Men who have not been circumcised probably would not encounter this situation. Yet when I wear jockey style underwear, it feels akin to rolling over on your stomach when you have an erection. Ouch.

My solution while around the house is to wear loose fitting lounging pants with no underwear. I’ve also been sleeping that way. It’s not horrible, but because there is no real relief from this discomfort, it does tend to wear on you after a while. From what I know based on experience from other men, this discomfort will be with me for a while but will gradually fade over the coming months. In fact, the University of Maryland Medical Center recently posted a testimonial video on their Urology page, in which a penile implant patient mentions a similar experience during recovery. Here's a link to that video:

Penile Implant Testimonial

The long and short of it is the discomfort doesn’t come as a total surprise. I figure I will deal with it and move on. I’m sure men who get a penile implant have somewhat varying experiences regarding recovery and in eventual use, but according to WebMD, upwards of 90% of them are glad they had it done. That makes me feel pretty good despite the discomfort.