Recovery process journaling

I’m particularly curious about the fine details that memory seems to forget such as the scar formation period over time, how many times dressings were changed on each day (and the timeframe that reduced), day to day pain/ feelings, etc.

Has anyone who was circumcised at an age where it was practical to keep a journal of the process of recovery do so?

I know since the advent of the internet and camera phones many more men are snapping a pic and writing a few lines each day afterwards

@Mrssnipgirl I was circumcised old enough to remember some things, but not old enough to be organized to keep a diary of the process. Here is what I recall.

When coming back from the operating room, my penis (which was of course small, at that age) was covered by some bandages, which were enormous in comparison. My mother was a bit shocked.

Then, the bandages were removed (I don't recall if by nurse, mother, etc.). I discovered my "new penis", and, at first (excuse my naïveté) it felt like they had surgically replaced its end. There was that pink thing I did not recognize: my glans, which I had never seen due to phimosis, except for the small area around the meatus. Then, there was a ring of stitches.

I have a recollection of being made to take seat baths, and also about some antiseptic soap. I think that I had warm seat baths months before surgery, when mom would try to pull on the skin after each bath. I think, but I'm unsure, that I had seat baths with antiseptic soap during the healing process.

The scar, or was it the stitches, itched. Also, these areas that previously were hidden were tender.

I do not recall if I was made to wear normal clothing. The date of surgery had been chosen so that I would not have to skip school. Perhaps I spent this time half naked or wearing light pajamas at home? Totally unsure.

I was brought back to the general practitioner who had pushed for surgery for a post-op visit. It felt awkward and embarrassing. By then, almost all stitches are dropped and the itching had stopped.

I was on the back on her examination table and my penis was the center of attention for her and my mother. She would talk to my mother about it, how the result was nice and so on. Using tweezers, she removed a couple stitches that had not dropped on their own, and pronounced me fit. I'm unsure how many days this happened post surgery.

@jacana

very similar , if not identical recollections , except I thought my newly exposed glans was a testicle, that had been pushed up my penis in some way to leave it exposed .... I too remember the itchy stitches and the follow up examinations ...

Just like @Jacana I don't remember much, especially in detail. The post-operative period vaguely comes to mind from the hospital. I only remember seeing the nurse explaining to my parents all the care I needed, my penis bandaged like a mummy, That same day I left the hospital, wearing one of my older brother's t-shirts, and his underwear with a cone or something, that makes me see it bulging.

At home, the first week was all about the sponge and my dad changing my bandages; it was the worst. I won't even mention urinating; it burned like crazy.

Halfway through week two, my stitches started to fall out and I was taken to the doctor. The swelling lasted a month, or longer. The discomfort when wearing underwear lasted even longer.

Of the previous appointments, I only vaguely remember the doctor checking the result and little else.

Mine was done decades ago when I was 18, but I can remember quite a few details, but the timeframes are hard to get exactly right.

I was put under for the surgery, and I remember waking up groggy, but relieved that it was finally over. There was an immediate soreness, but nothing severe. A nurse did my first bandage change. I was amazed at how rough it looked. It was bruised and swollen. The stitches stuck outward like some kind of barbaric spikes. The color was disturbing too: some dried blood, but the yellow color was unexpected. In the hospital I was given muscle relaxants to prevent erections. From talking to others I've found out this is not common - as I have mentioned elsewhere my cut was extremely tight, and I suppose that might have been the reason.

After the muscle relaxants ran out in a couple of days I woke up with my first proper erection and really the most (and only) actually painful experience. There was a joke from primary school that went "What's the definition of pain? Popping a boner and running out of skin". Yeah, that and also your skin has a large, sewn-together gap in it. I started learning to keep my knees up when I slept to reduce the tension. It was around then that I first 'tested' my ability to orgasm - it was a 'challenging wank' as Sean Lock might say. Anyway - everything seemed to be functional, so it was a matter of getting through the healing process. I didn't realize it at that point, but healing would be a matter of about a couple of years.

The swelling was well under control after the first few days, the bruising and discoloration continued, but the itch was a constant nuisance. Once I stopped wearing bandages I found that chafing with underwear caused a blister to form on the head. The skin also began to peel a bit like a sunburn. The border of the inner and outer skin was raised and a bit bumpier than everything else.

After a few days I noticed the stitches started to become loose. They were the dissolving type - 'cat gut' they're sometimes called - and they dry out and become spiky where they are exposed, but soften and become absorbed in the inside. My first (or maybe second) shower post-op was interesting. I kept my wound protected - oh I recall washing off some of the dyed antiseptic residue, btw - and was gentle letting it get wet, but at one point I was turning around and the shower spray landed right on my knob. WOW! I didn't realize water could hurt! Well, not _hurt_ exactly, but it was intense and unexpected, and I reacted as if it hurt.

After about 10 days or so stitches were coming out, and I ended up pulling out the last 2 which caused a very small amount of bleeding, but they needed to go and they weren't letting go. From about this point I recall a few things becoming part of my new normal. First, the meatus would occasionally get stuck to my underwear. This caused a small amount of irritation and a sharp stinging when pulled away. That particular annoyance lasted for about 5 years, but became rarer and rarer. By about the end of the first year it would happen about once every few days. I can't currently recall the last time it happened. Second, I would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night with a strong sense of needing to pee with a mild burning sensation in the meatus. I eventually found out this was caused by random hairs or lint finding it's way into my now completely unprotected meatus and causing irritation. Sometimes having a pee would burn, but help clear it out. Sometimes I had to pull out the offending material, sometimes it was mild enough that I could sleep it off. Third, because I was cut so very tight, the glans would get pulled back to the point of being uncomfortable. The sensation was very similar to having the tip of your nose pressed until the cartilage begins to get deformed - not very painful, but not comfortable. It would take a few months for the skin to grow out - the urologist told me to expect that - and it was the inner (pink) skin that did all of the stretching, so I went from a mid-high cut to a high cut just from that. Eventually, though, the skin stretched to the point where it was taut, but not enough to cause erections to pull to one side or flatten the head, and it's stayed like that since. I find the level of tightness caused by erections to be very pleasant. Fourth, the scar, which would gradually soften over the course of the first year, would randomly ache. Sometimes there would be these kind of dull aches that kind of danced around the scar, sometimes it was just a random spark - like an itch, but painful - that would happen. I found that soreness would sometimes occur immediately after orgasm. These pains diminished over time as the scar softened. After about 6 months or so the scar was no longer a bump around the circumference of the shaft, but just a transition from inner to outer skin. The color contrast between the inner and outer skin became less sharp. The first few months the inner skin was quite pink, and over time it has become less brightly pink and more like the outer skin.

The sensations evolved over time as well. At first, the transition from inner to outer skin was very noticeable. If I ran a finger across the scar it was a distractingly unusual sensation. During sex I was keenly aware of when the border between the 'innie' skin and 'outtie' skin transitioning from inside to outside my partner. Over time I have become used to it, but if I pay attention I can still tell where I am feeling sensation relative to the scar. The glans color settled down to a typically light-purple, and the spot where I had developed a blister during the first week remains a bit darker even now. The hyper-sensitivity others often complain about was no problem for me since I had spent much of my teenage years trying to permanently retract, so I was not only used to feeling underwear against my glans, I quite liked the sensation. After the 'sunburn' peeling period, about 2 weeks in I transitioned from the glans feeling very to merely mildly stimulated from typical daily activities like walking, although the transition from sitting to standing sometimes was awkward because of the sticky meatus problem I mentioned - a quick adjustment and I was fine again. About a year afterwards I started university and began going to the gym regularly, so I would develop a taste for the sensation of my glans rubbing more vigorously against my underwear when on a bike, or the sensation of the net inside swim trunks rubbing when swimming. Either of these would have been agony if I had tried it with retracted foreskin, but over the year of exposure the glans had toughened and it was delightful. I was very aware of my knob the first several months, but over time it simply became the normal background sensation. I can still feel it, and I can choose to pay attention to it, but normally it's not a distraction.

Sex. Well, that was an interesting part of recovery. When I resumed sexual activity after a few weeks I discovered that I had completely lost all my 'staying power'. I once orgasmed during foreplay, just going down on my partner. Getting circumcised was the realization of a strong desire I had had since I was about 10 years old, which was a massive turn-on. The tightness of erections was also a turn on (even though they were a little uncomfortable at first). If that weren't enough, I could finally have sex without the foreskin rolling around and getting in the way - full contact with my partner! Forget about it, I was cumming 30 seconds into it. The main effect was that I spent a lot more time with foreplay, and developed some skills there, including patience. The other side effect was that I discovered that I could continue coitus after orgasm. I found that because of the constant exposure that lead to the glans toughening, I could continue stimulation during and after orgasm, and the post-orgasmic hyper-sensitivity was just a return to the intense sensation I so enjoyed before I was circumcised with the added benefit that I wouldn't be sore afterwards! In my 20's I was able to orgasm twice or three times before I ran out of steam (not every time mind you - I'm not superman, but when the mood was right - wooh!) My girlfriend would give me these prolonged massage sessions where she would just go to town on my knob for 30-minutes or longer - it was excrutiating and wonderful. I will note, however, that after about 45 minutes or so I would get a little sore, especially if she decided to tease the meatus (she had a bit of a sadistic streak sometimes), but it was nothing I couldn't handle. In addition to these games she would bring me to the edge of orgasm and then stop. Through this I began to develop a better sense of when orgasm was approaching and learned eventually to develop some control. It took a few months to develop enough control to have intercourse for a 'normal' amount of time (5-10 minutes or so), and learn how to pace myself.

So that's the journey more or less as I recall it.

@CanD Interesting how, though cut at different ages, we both remember the ring of stitches spiking out (I think I read the comparison to a "crown of thorns" on this forum), the alarming color at first and the intense itching.

@CanD Interesting how, though cut at different ages, we both remember the ring of stitches spiking out (I think I read the comparison to a "crown of thorns" on this forum), the alarming color at first and the intense itching.

Yeah, although not entirely unexpected I suppose. I think the take away is that there really wasn't much pain, which is what a lot of people who want the surgery are afraid of. I found vasectomy was much more painful and inconvenient than circumcision, although the full recovery was faster.

I did indeed keep a diary of my recovery, which was quite slow. It was in 1991, so before the days of digital cameras. I have posted it in the Blogs section.

https://en.zity.biz/index.php?mx=blog;ox=showblog;id=1855