Checking for phimosis during a physical exam

The very last sports physical I had for wrestling, the doctor I had in my youth specifically checked to see if I had a tight foreskin, twice.

After she did the rectal exam, (only time I had one) I was hard, and she told me to turn around and lie down on my back on the exam table. I hid my genitals with my hand, but she told me to move my hands to my sides, and asked me if it hurt when my penis was "like this," and pulled the skin back.

She also retracted the skin earlier when I was not erect, so she did it twice.

I think she had me turn around after the rectal exam to check if I had an erection, and to see if my foreskin was able to move freely. I wonder if that is normal for doctors to check your penis in such state during a physical? She only did this the very last year I saw her before I transferred to an another doctor for adulthood.

Fascinating exam. How old were you? I am guessing 18ish. Having a rectal at that age is very inviting in so far as becoming erect is concerned.

It sounds nice that the doctor did such a thorough exam! Checking foreskin retraction when soft is normal and routine. I’d imagine a lot of patients around the age you were spring natural erections during rectal exams, and perhaps the doctor thought she would take the opportunity to check again if your foreskin looks even slightly tight when soft. Some foreskins retract fine when soft but struggle when hard, and some can even get trapped behind the coronal sulcus (ridge at the base of the glans/head) and cause a very serious condition called paraphimosis. So she may have been doing you a favour in more ways than one!

Prior to this site, I had never heard of phimosis. After reading more about it, I am SO grateful my parents had me circumcised.

@turnheadandcough Phimosis occurs for all baby boys, then disappears naturally over time in almost al boys without inconvenience for them.

The very last sports physical I had for wrestling, the doctor I had in my youth specifically checked to see if I had a tight foreskin, twice.

After she did the rectal exam, (only time I had one) I was hard, and she told me to turn around and lie down on my back on the exam table. I hid my genitals with my hand, but she told me to move my hands to my sides, and asked me if it hurt when my penis was "like this," and pulled the skin back.

Though very ticklish for my fetish for examinations, I do wonder what place a rectal exam and a check for a tight foreskin has (or had) in a sports physical.

It sounds nice that the doctor did such a thorough exam! Checking foreskin retraction when soft is normal and routine. I’d imagine a lot of patients around the age you were spring natural erections during rectal exams, and perhaps the doctor thought she would take the opportunity to check again if your foreskin looks even slightly tight when soft. Some foreskins retract fine when soft but struggle when hard, and some can even get trapped behind the coronal sulcus (ridge at the base of the glans/head) and cause a very serious condition called paraphimosis.

I agree with these words. My penis was available during puberty. The penis was always flaccid during examination. Doctors never found anything wrong. When I was an adult, it turned out that I had partial phimosis. When the penis was flaccid, the foreskin slipped well. However, the problem was during erection. I never had a rectal examination during puberty. The first time I was examined rectally was during a military examination. I had an incomplete erection. However, I had my penis examined before the rectal examination,

Are guys expected to develop erections when engaging in sports? I'm pretty sure that is not the case.

So why check for phimosis during a sports physical?

And besides, even without having a tight foreskin, it doesn't always feel 'nice/good' when the situation doesn't call for a foreskin retraction.

I don't think that it was abnormal for a doctor at a sports exam of a male teen to check if he had not a tight foreskin which was not uncommon on male teens, so a check of his skin pulled on for retractation was logical even at a sports exam and sincev the boy was here for an exam, why not perform also a rectal exam even if it was less common, a visual inspection of the anus area was more understandable to check for marks or external hemorroids but she might have thought that the exam for sports was a good opportunity to perform a complete exam of a teen, kind of check up, rather than just check just what was important for sports, may be she knew that the boy was not going to see a doctor very often. It was only a complete exam, she did nothing who was chocking or scandalous.

I don't see why it is chocking or scandalous for some of you, it is the routine part of a standard exam in a complete chek up of a male teenager,

Well, When I go in for an eye-exam, I don't expect to get my prostate examined either 😜

It feels rather out of place to me, and I would most certainly question it if it would happen to me.

I had an especially tight foreskin as a child and teenager. It was a normal part of all my medical examinations growing up that the doctor would want to check how far my foreskin retracted. I would often have a partial or full erection when this happened. Slowly over time, I managed to stretch my foreskin with regular persistence and using a steroid cream prescribed by the doctor. Now, I have no issues with being able to full retract the foreskin when hard or soft.

In my opinion a medical should include thorough examination of everything, so that no problem is left undiagnosed and thus preventative or early treatment measure can be undertaken if desired

I was never physically checked for phimosis in my early years, just the 'cough and drop'.

In later years I did have tight foreskin problems and my penis was examined by a couple of male doctors.

They manipulated my foreskin back across the head of my penis, and suggested I make a practice of doing this.

Suffice to say that during the examination my penis did erect.

It was never explicity checked, but the doctor would roll back my foreskin in school exams saying they wanted to check underneath. I guess they also wanted to see if it rolled back freely as well.

I wish I could have experienced foreskin exams. It's slightly erotic having something like that manually exposed. Granted mine's always out but I imagine it's different for uncut guys.

Given my father's obsession with foreskins inevitably developing infections leading to penis amputation, I cannot for the life of me remember mine ever being checked by a doctor. Not one memory at all, though I cannot believe it would have gone unchecked, especially when we lived in the US, That seems far too unlikely.

So I guess I must have buried any memories really really deep. Which I also find hard to believe.

I have only had my foreskin checked underneath a couple of times. The first time was a pre-university physical exam by an Occ Health Nurse, she said she was pleased to see that I practiced good hygiene, I was mortified!! Second was a few years ago by a Naturopathic Doctor! The family doctor doesn't do physicals anymore and even when he did never checked under the foreskin!

In the first line the author indicates the doctor is one he had in his youth, likely a pediatrician, as later he indicates going to a new/different doctor for adulthood.

With knowledge of that very typical transition and knowing that, especially boys, don't go to the doctor unless they're sick or need a sports physical, it was wise of her to do a complete physical as it's likely the young man wasn't going to get a new doc immediately. Remember, at tyouthful age of the patient, we all likely thought we were going to live almost higher than we could count, or something like that.

My PCP will sometimes perform this exam during my annual physical. Normally, I’ll be laying down and she’ll inform me that she just wants to make sure that everything is healthy in that region so she’ll take a look at the glans. I’m not told explicitly that it’s for phimosis since she’s also looking for other lesions. But this does not happens every exam.

Im not sure about nowadays, but back in the 70s and 80s, it was a standard procedure to check the retraction of a guy's foreskin during a physical exam.

In the UK, it was almost a certainty that you would be subjected to this check during your early years at school.

The question seems to be why did the doctor check the OP for phimosis if he was there for a sports physical. Doctors often use visits to screen for things other than the reason for the visit. Especially if he was examined in her office, while the OP may have considered it a sports physical, the doctor may have seen it as an annual physical exam. In that context, checking for phimosis in a ?17 year old make perfect sense. Checking when a guy is flaccid can give an indirect indication, but if phimosis is a problem, it shows up during an erection, so checking him again when he was hard made sense. The rectal exam at that age is less common, but as @PolarBear said, she may have figured he may not have another physical for some years, so may as well check it now.

When I was in my mid 20's I was going to have all my wisdom teeth removed (I guess that's where I lost my wisdom) in a hospital and would undergo anesthesia. I had the pre-op physical at the hospital clinic. All the dr. really needed to do to clear me for surgery was get my history, labs, ECG, check my mouth/nose, heart and lungs. But he did a full exam, including eyes, abd., genital exam and anal (not rectal) exam.

The exam the OP describes doesn't seem out of line at all.

When I was in my mid 20's I was going to have all my wisdom teeth removed (I guess that's where I lost my wisdom) in a hospital and would undergo anesthesia. I had the pre-op physical at the hospital clinic. All the dr. really needed to do to clear me for surgery was get my history, labs, ECG, check my mouth/nose, heart and lungs. But he did a full exam, including eyes, abd., genital exam and anal (not rectal) exam.

I don't wish to sound cynical, but wouldn't all those extra exams be added to the hospital bill? Doing all those superfluous exams seems just a way to pad the bill. Which is actually not very ethical when it comes down to it.

Heath care is not supposed to be a business where doctors/hospitals find excuses to charge more than they should.

I had my foreskin retracted at all my my medicals from age 7 to 18. This was during the 1979s to kid 80s and was part of the annual school medical and a check I had in the summer holidays. I don’t think it was uncommon at the time.

Now I wonder where my phimosis was detected - school physical? pediatrician? I think mom mentioned a pediatrician, then there was insistence on the part of our GP, I think. Of course, later physicals had nothing to examine there anymore.

Like "JP1" writes it was a standard procedure in a lot of examinations especially the mandatory ones to have a check of genitals from may be 10 to 18 age ( hernia test, retraction of foreskin, palpation of testicles and so on, it could be rather thorough and it was expected, not at all a surprise for a male pre-teen and teenager !

a visual inspection of the anus area was less common but frequent and generally performed without a rectal exam with fingers which was performed later in life

but the inspection of the spine was also a standard part of any mandatory physical examination in institutions

wouldn't all those extra exams be added to the hospital bill?

not with state healthcare such as is the case with the NHS in England

@Yolo How are physicians paid by the NHS? A salary, or per task?

not with state healthcare such as is the case with the NHS in England

Could not tell which country the post was referring to ... sounded like the US.

Anyway, even with state-run health care, the procedures are itemized and billed to the state-run insurance which becomes part of the health care budget anyway. It's just that the patient isn't aware of how this accounting of costs is added up and to whom it is charged.

This was in the USA. They simply bill for a pre-op physical, not specifically what is performed. Years later when I had a pre-op for more complicated surgery, the exam was more cursory and focused. It was also performed by the surgeon's PA and I don't believe was separately billed for.

Some doctors are very thorough, some more directed. The wisdom teeth extraction was also quite a few years ago. A lot of research is currently being done to determine exactly what is and is not worth checking for. For reasons of family history, I prefer a doctor being more thorough. I also never decline a test or referral to a specialist.

Could not tell which country the post was referring to ... sounded like the US.

Anyway, even with state-run health care, the procedures are itemized and billed to the state-run insurance which becomes part of the health care budget anyway.

@Yolo How are physicians paid by the NHS? A salary, or per task?

@Jacana Salary