Has someone got a phimosis later in childhood?

I can remember to be able to retract my foreskin when very young (3 years?).

But "suddenly" with around 6..7 years my foreskin could not be retracted anymore.

Has anyone an idea about what could have happened?

My parents specially my dad was not able to teach me the basics of penile hygienic.

There was a brief time early in puberty when I had this issue. But prior to puberty starting, I never experienced this once I could retract.

Yes, this happened to me and my younger brother.

My father had taught me to retract my foreskin for cleaning in the bath, at an early age. I can certainly remember being able to retract at the age of 4, fully and painlessly. In fact I quite enjoyed the sensation of the skin sliding back over my sensitive glans, so I continued to retract it regularly during my early childhood, although I usually peed with the foreskin in its normal forward position.

Around the age of 11 or 12 my foreskin tightened over a period of a few weeks, or maybe months, until I could not pull it back at all. A tight collar of inflexible skin had formed around the opening, and even using extreme force to the point of pain, the opening would not stretch wider than about 5 or 6 mm, so only the slit in my glans was visible. Although I was very upset that I could no longer uncover my knob, I was too embarrassed to tell my parents (or anybody else), and hoped it would only be a temporary tightness. It turned out to be permanent.

Not much later, my parents discovered that my brother, then aged 6, could no longer pull back his foreskin. His had also been easily retractable previously, as I had seen for myself. He was taken to the doctor, who of course recommended circumcision, and he went into hospital for the operation shortly afterwards. I remember my father asking me if my foreskin was still OK, and as the prospect of circumcision terrified me, I lied to him and thankfully he didn't ask me to prove it.

Later in my teens when I began to realise that my tightness was permanent, I began to make attempts at stretching my foreskin. These would would be painful but unsuccessful, and I was never able to uncover more than the very tip of my glans. Sometimes the skin would split, and after it healed the skin was tighter than ever.

I eventually decided to get circumcised when I was 31.

As to why it happened, I think the most likely explanation is a condition called lichen sclerosis, which causes a thickening of the skin, and is often a cause of phimosis. Alternatively I may have damaged the skin with playing too aggressively with my foreskin, the scar tissue which then formed causing the tightness.

@Ikonos

Did you tell your parents you could no longer retract your foreskin, or did they (or a doctor) discover it themselves. Were you circumcised?

I only really became aware of my phimosis when comparing with other boys around 12 or 13, and my first thought was "Oh, mine doesnt do that" when they skinned back. Once I'd seen a few I realised that I was the odd one out, not them.

But it never caused me any issues with cleanliness, neither smell nor inflammation or infection so it never bothered me and I assumed I had always been like that.

It wasn't until a Doctor noticed it a couple of years later that I was told of the potential problems and had treatment to rectify it.

It wasn't until a Doctor noticed it a couple of years later that I was told of the potential problems and had treatment to rectify it.

And the treatment to rectify it was ?

Until some 11-12 years I could not pull the foreskin to the end it was especially difficult when it was erected, my mother at the end of each bath supervised whether I pulled the foreskin and was very strict on the matter, when we went to the doctor said that the final limit for circumcision is 12 years and that this is his suggestion, he gave me some cream in the meantime I was very embarrassed because my mother was with me all the time and later when I used that cream but in the end 12 years ago, I managed to completely pull the foreskin so that the whole head came out.

And the treatment to rectify it was ?

Like @serbian, the treatment was steroid cream and stretching exeercises.

My experience is similar: I was able to retract my foreskin as a young boy but later in childhood (around the age of 10), although I did not have full blown phimosis my foreskin would get stuck behind the head of the penis, making it almost impossible to put back when erect. It was like that through puberty. I once even "locked" the foreskin back behind my penis head to make it look as though I was circumsized when showing with my classmates after gym. It was extremely painful to masturbate though, but I had to take the pleasure with the pain. By the time I was 18, it finally started to stretch out and feel less constrictive. After finally starting to be sexually active, my foreskin was stretched in all different directions to the point that it is now too loose! Going back to the original question. What happened? My guess is that although the penis will gradually grow, the foreskin does not develop with it, unless it is regularly stretched.

I once even "locked" the foreskin back behind my penis head to make it look as though I was circumsized when showing with my classmates after gym.

Hello ds20e, I would do the same. As a seventh grader (I was 12 y/o), I would retract my foreskin before entering the mandatory after gym class showers such that it would appear that I was circumcised (I was the only male in my class that sported a foreskin). Unfortunately, my frenulum was rather taunt and would pull my foreskin forward covering my glans half way through the shower. A rather embarrassing situation.

As I mentioned elsewhere I remember my foreskin to be quite easily retractable when I was 5-9 yo, but then I gave up on retracting it entirely until I was maybe even 13-14! So then I found it quite tight when soft and basically unretractable when hard.

Makes me wonder if a regular retraction is a necessity for adult males to keep the foreskin loose. Conversely, would not retracting it, make it as tight as it used to be when I was a teenager?

Of course I wash down there, but recently I tried to minimise playing with my foreskin and see if it would tighten up a bit. Not sure about tightening yet, but interestingly I could not find anything wrong hygiene-wise. I only minimaly retracted to pee during the day and in the evening there was not a hint of scent or dirt.

As my Aunt told when I was a little boy "If you don't put dirty fingers in there, you won't get cheese."

My mother used to retract it for washing at bathtime until I was about 6 or 8 years old. No problems with it retracting except for the frenulum limiting how far before the tip got bent down. Somewhere in my teen years it became a bit tight and would get stuck behind the head when erect. It seemed like my penis outgrew it and I had to fix that myself by inserting my little fingers inside and applying stretching pressure while showering. That was somewhat nice as a teen because I had the habit of having my wet dreams before I went to sleep. If I left it back when it got stuck my glans would be nice and dry in the morning and less sensitive to touch. So I could have fun touching the bare glans and playing with it. Eventually I had stretched it to where I was able to get three fingers in there comfortably. I figured my penis had simply outgrown the foreskin during my teen years and that was normal.

I had incomplete phimosis, but no one knew about it. The foreskin was coming off the glans of the penis and everything seemed fine. The problem was that I had trouble pulling the foreskin back when the penis was erect.

I was examined regularly by a pediatrician during my adolescence and found nothing wrong. My penis was flaccid during the examination and the foreskin came off very well.

It was only as an adult man that I found out that I had phimosis and underwent a circumcision procedure. I have pointed this out to many parents with sons so that they would be sensitive to it if their child had phimosis. Many of them complied with it. Several boys were diagnosed with phimosis, and three of them were circumcised.

@Reman

Is circumcision a common treatment for phimosis in Poland?

I just heard they had a gorilla born in the US. They said it was the first one, a male. I don't know if they meant it was the first gorilla or the first male. Can't help but wonder if they circumcised it, being a male born in the US.

Can't help but wonder if they circumcised it, being a male born in the US.

My uncle gave me a male Collie pup when I was a kid. (lots of joy). My uncle was a strong believer in circumcision and had had the dog's foreskin circumcised. The dog's glans penis was permanently exposed.

Collie pup ? Are you sure ? Sounds absolutely ridiculous ....and nothing to do with a medical fetish forum .

You possibly had a chronic infection that resulted in scar tissue.

I had a very narrow foreskin until the age 10, so that my glans and urethral opening was not visible. I faintly remember it was wider at an early age, but not so that it could be retracted. I remember I had an infection at the tip of my foreskin at 6, which was treated by my mother retracting it as far as possible and applying a salve.

I never got any other problem, though. My parents new about the issue and simply ignored it for a long time. But suddenly my father thought it was important to do something with the issue. I think he had got a message from the school health service to check it because they needed to have my urethral opening fully accessible, for catheterization and examination of my urethra and bladder. This also happened to me later in my preteen period.

My father took me to the family doctor, which wanted to send me to hospital for surgery, which could mean circumcision . He also mentioned which hospital, namely the National Hospital, which mostly dealt with serious illness, and not the local hospital. This sounded strange. I got the suspicion that they wanted to do much more than this foreskin surgery, I protested and actually made a scene at the office of the doctor.

This resulted in sending me to the office of a private surgeon for a second opinion. He examined my penis, and tried to retract my foreskin right away which was rather painful, but not more than tolerable.

He said that no surgery was necessary, because my phimosis was of the soft kind, and that it could be cured simply by stretching the tip of my foreskin each day until it was wide enough. I did and it worked well. After some weeks the issue was solved.

I did the stretching myself but my parents watched when i did it.

At age 7 a doctor diagnosed that I had a tight foreskin. This went on for three years at subsequent medical exams with her. From 10 upwards, it didn’t seem to be an issue. I don’t know how things were before I was seven, but I don’t remember any attention being brought to it.

My phimosis started just before my 15th birthday. I tried to keep it a secret, but at the regular annual exam the doctor couldn't remove my foreskin, so she had a short discussion with my parents and I had no choice but to go for circumcision.

@putro At age 15, you were not given choice about it? it was your body after all

I was diagnosed with phimosis at the age of 7 before going to school and I was almost before the operation, but I only managed to get to the end at the end of 11 years, with constant control and regular withdrawal I somehow managed to get through without surgery.

@putro At age 15, you were not given choice about it? it was your body after all

It's easy to say now, but at 15 years, I was still dumb little kid with medical problem, and if doctor & parents said "lets circumcise you", there was no other solution.

I got my first school medical at age 7. The doctor said that my little foreskin was tight as he tried to pull it back. I remember it hurt. That led to a letter being sent home. My dad took me to the GP who agreed it was tight and he showed my dad. This led to my dad helping me stretch it at home

@AndrewSW How did the doctor become aware of your tight foreskin, was it due to it being retracted in a medical, or you went to see them for that specific reason?

@Examined . It was following an annual school medical aged 14 that my parents were asked to make an appointment for me at a local clinic. The letter wasn't addressed to me and I neither read it nor remembered it exactly, but the main reason was to investigate that I hadn't yet started puberty. The foreskin thing seemed to be an additional minor issue.

It seems reasonable that both issues would have been present and noted at earlier exams but they left it a while to see if they would rectify themselves without intervention.

Up until i was 30 i had no problems with my foreskin then my wife got given a handmade down vintage duvet . Too warm for me and i would often roll it down to spoon with my wife . Well it was morning and i was hard and thrust between her cheeks and had a terrible pain in my penis . A quill with a needle like tip had pierced my penis through my foreskin . it curled up through my urethra and i was able to pull it out and i thought after a few days i had dodged a bullet as it seemed to have healed ok . About two weeks after we were having sex and something went pop n my penis and my penis swelled up and my foreskin was trapped back . Long story short there had been a pocked like a abscess and it had burst infecting my whole penis and it was agony . In hospital because of the infection the gave me a dorsal slit and then i could pee but it took two weeks of anti biotics before they could circumcise me . Then in hospital my testicles all swelled up and i was in pain with it . Thats when i found out that my wife was cheating on me and on top of everything else had given me

gonorrhea and Chlamydia . Happy days lol . Lost most of my erectile tissue and went from 7 inches to 4 at best .

I had several penis examinations when very young. I had traumatic forced retraction and this contributed to a phimosis that was diagnosed at 5 years. The surgeon decided for circumcision but my pediatrician wanted to try first with a preputial synechiotomy he did on my penis. I then had several sessions of preputial dilatation with specific instruments and steroid cream. They finished when I begun to masturbate and it solved by its own.

Summary in German for English page Thank you very much for the contributions and the impetus for participating in the „Tread“.

I was born in West Germany in 1961. With a very long foreskin, which I already had as a child. Various doctors later confirmed that I had phimosis. However, I never had any problems. My foreskin could not be pulled over the glans, but I had neither infections nor inflammations during the time I still had my foreskin.

During my school days, I can't remember any medical examination where the foreskin was an issue. At least I was not examined on the genitals there.

My first contact with such an examination was in 1971 when I was 9 years old. I was sent to a clinic for weight tests (was too thin for my body), where I had to stay for three weeks to assess my weight. There I was medically examined by a doctor. In which I was completely naked. The doctor examined my genitals very thoroughly with his large, hairy hands. He diagnosed phimosis and found my long foreskin inappropriate and unnecessary, which should be removed as soon as possible. However, this did not happen.

In 1973, at the age of 11, I had to go to this same clinic again because the weight gain had no progress. The same doctor examined me again. He also dealt intensively with my foreskin again. In addition, there was an erection, which was even more embarrassing for me. Once again, he has revealed circumcision as a remedy. That didn't happen again.

My long foreskin seemed to be a thorn in the side not only of the doctors. At the age of 15, I was stripped naked during a body search at a police station, and the officers were more interested in my long foreskin than in my deed. I'll just call it police arbitrariness.

In 1977, at the age of 16, an initial examination was carried out at an apprentice home. This was carried out in complete nudity. The doctor examined my genitals thoroughly and here too there was a new erection. The shame was very great. My phimosis was again a strong topic. Which enabled the director of the apprentice office to regularly check our foreskins by a teacher.

During my medical examination, however, my genital area was not an issue at all!

Not even later, when I had to complete a second examination at the health department for substitute service. There was no genital examination there either.

I was therefore shocked, also traumatized, when I had to start my substitute service in a clinic. Where I was then examined by two doctors.

My long foreskin and phimosis was a big issue!

Because of my foreskin, I was constantly urged to perform a circumcision right in the clinic. The clinic had a department of urology, where three of these doctors examined my genitals and tried to loosen my foreskin with stretching exercises (clamps). They did not succeed, which led to the fact that the two ward doctors examined me several times in the genital area.

These constant examinations and the constant admonitions to finally have to be circumcised led to me having the circumcision carried out in the clinic.

My circumcision therefore took place under the constraints of the constant paternalism of the doctors. This was by no means voluntary. After the circumcision, I had many problems with my glans (inflammation, irritation, dryness, numbness). It took a long time for this to normalize.

Later, I joined a forum of circumcision opponents. From today's point of view, I see many things differently and can therefore no longer support the discussions for or against in the same way. Probably just became too much over time.

Today I live well with my circumcised penis and have no more problems with it. Though I still like to see uncircumcised penises.