Is It Necessary to Straighten a Curved Penis?
Not every curved penis requires Peyronie’s treatment
Before discussing how to straighten a curved penis, it would be wise to consider if reducing penile curvature in your situation is a necessary and advisable thing to do.
If you know for a fact that you have Peyronie’s disease, it is my opinion that it is always wise to attempt to treat your problem – even if it is currently only minor and does not interfere with intercourse. Many men suggest to me that since their curved penis is not causing any sexual problem they are not going to do anything about getting rid of their Peyronies problem. They say they will only worry about having PD if they cannot engage in intercourse. Otherwise they intend to just leave it alone.
But, it is unwise to delay effort to straighten a recently curved penis for three reasons:
- Many times a small penile curvature suddenly gets bad enough to interfere with intercourse
- The longer Peyronie’s disease persists the more difficult it can be to treat
- A curved penis is unstable during intercourse. The longer your penile curvature continues you take an unnecessary risk every time you engage in sexual intercourse because your penis could suddenly bend and buckle when you least expect it, resulting in additional injury on top of what you currently have.
If you are not sure you have Peyronie’s disease, it might be unnecessary to use any treatment procedure. It is best to seek a medical opinion about your curved penis to determine the exact cause and diagnosis of your situation.
Lifelong penile curvature
When a man has had a curved penis all his life, it is still possible to use a few techniques that are discussed on this website to straighten a curved penis that is not related to Peyronie’s disease. The Peyronie’s treatment that might be successful to reverse a normally curved penis are:
- Gentle Manual Penis Stretching Technique © – done without dangerous or painful penis stretcher devices.
- PMD DMSO, in combination with copper peptides (Super CP Serum) and vitamin E concentrate.
- Neprinol
The idea behind this approach is to soften and reduce as much soft tissue as possible within the contracted scar tissue, while using gentle manual penile stretching to straighten your curved penis; approaching the problem from two different directions at the same time.
Straighten a curved penis due to Peyronie’s disease
Regardless of the duration of Peyronie’s disease or how severe the curved penis, it is possible to make changes in the penile curvature and distortion. There is no way to predict how much correction can be earned; sometimes it is complete reversal of curvature and other times the correction is only minor – but everyone seems to note some degree of improvement. The real factor that seems to determine if a man succeeds or not is the amount of time and effort he devotes to his problem.
Now that you know how to work to straighten a curved penis it is time to get busy. You will never know for sure until you do your best to correct your penile curvature, and now is the best time to do it.
My Penis is Curved
How to straighten a penis
What a shock when you realize, “My penis is curved. How did that happen, and what is going on down there? And the most important question to Google, How to straighten my penis?”
While there are several other causes of a curved penis to suddenly happen, the most common one, and the most difficult one to deal with is Peyronie’s disease. Peyronie’s disease is a condition that occurs in about 6-10% of men over the age of 40 (although it can affect teenagers and men in their early 20s) in which a dense and thick mass of fibrous tissue, called a Peyronie’s plaque or scar, is found within the tunica albuginea layer on the inside of the penis. The presence of a nodule or band of fibrous tissue under the skin of the penis will prevent the normal expansion of the chambers of the penis during an erection. This causes the erection to be distorted resulting in a curve, bend, hinge, hourglass or bottleneck distortion.
To assist you to determine if you have PD, please visit Peyronie’s symptoms and check out some of the Peyronie’s pictures of curved penis. It is necessary for anyone who thinks he might have Peyronie’s disease to go to his doctor to have a complete examination so an accurate diagnosis can be made. Do not make the mistake to think you can self-diagnose this problem.
It is important to remember that the problem of Peyronie’s disease is not that you have a curved penis. The problem is actually the Peyronie’s scar that is present within the deep tissue of the tunica albuginea causing incomplete filling of the penile chambers, resulting in the curved penis that got your attention. For this reason any treatment that is directed solely at trying to make the penis straight without removing or eliminating the PD plaque will not be successful.
While the Peyronie’s Disease Institute does not take a position against Peyronie’s surgery, we feel too many men resort to penis surgery far too soon before trying conservative treatment. If a man knows he has Peyronie’s disease he should also know the problem is that his body produced excessive scar tissue or plaque in response to a small injury or inflammation of the deep penile tissue layer. What does he assume will happen to that same tissue when a surgeon cuts that same tissue and also tugs on it, stretches it, and put stitches into it during the course of Peyronie’s surgery? There is a very good chance that more excessive scar tissue will result. This is why many urologists and surgeons take a position against all Peyronie’s surgery.
Since 2002 the Peyronie’s Disease Institute has educated men about the use of Alternative Medicine to assist the body to heal the Peyronie’s plaque. Fifty percent of men naturally recover from Peyronie’s disease without any help or outside intervention; the problem just goes away on its own like any other health problem should. Our approach is to assist each man to enable his body to heal naturally like those in that lucky 50% group.
So if you are one of us who has said in shock, “My penis is curved,” you now know what to do about it. Learn more about Peyronie’s disease treatment with Alternative Medicine. Another good source of information is the Peyronie’s Disease Handbook.
What is Peyronie’s Disease?
Not all definitions of Peyronie’s disease are honest or correct
Great question, “What is Peyronie’s Disease?” However, an accurate and honest answer is not always easy to find. If you are one of the hundreds of new people each day who surf the Internet for an answer to this question, you need to pay attention to the kind of answer you might run across.
In my experience it is common to receive an incorrect answer when it is provided by someone who only wants to sell you something, like a magic herb or a manual penis stretcher. When a salesperson is the source of your information the answer will often minimize Peyronies by oversimplifying the real problem to the point the answer is not truthful.
The reason that someone will intentionally give you this false information is easy to understand. If Peyronie’s disease can be made to sound like a simple problem, then a simple solution can be more easily presented to you in a believable way – and the more likely you will buy a product if the problem and solution sound uncomplicated and straightforward.
The usual short (and false) answer you will see to this question is, “Peyronie’s disease is a curved penis.” This is almost like saying that Peyronie’s disease is no more complicated than a bent paperclip. All you have to do is straighten out the paperclip – and we all know how easy that is to do – and you are as good as new.
What you must understand is that the bent penis of Peyronie’s disease is just a symptom of what is wrong. The penile curvature is not the problem, it is just a sign of the real problem. What is causing the penis to curve is the actual problem that must be addressed.
If you have pneumonia, you will probably have a nasty cough. But, it is not correct – or helpful – to say, “Pneumonia is a cough.” If the problem was presented to you like that, and you believed it, then someone could sell you a cough suppressant as a cure for pneumonia. You would believe that stopping the cough is all you have to do. The truth is that the cough is just an outward sign of a deeper problem. To address your pneumonia correctly you must do what is necessary to help your body reduce and remove the lung infection, the inflammatory response that occurs because of an invasion of foreign bacteria, and the cough – and the pneumonia – will no longer be an issue. The cough is just a sign of the pneumonia, it is not pneumonia – just as a curved penis is a sign of Peyronie’s disease, but it is not the problem. The bent penis is just an outward sign of a Peyronie’s plaque or scar tissue within the tunica albuginea interfering with the normal filling of the corpora cavernosa, resulting in a bent or distorted erection. No mechanical penis stretcher or mystery herb from Afghanistan will eliminate the PD plaque.
So, what is Peyronie’s disease?
Peyronie’s disease is a problem with no known cause and no known medical cure in which the presence of a dense fibrous nodule or band in the tunica albuginea layer of the penis causes a variable degrees of pain, penile distortion during erection, reduced sexual function, and loss of physical size in length and girth.
If the explanation, “Peyronie’s disease is a bend in the penis” makes you think it is just like a wrinkle in your shirt that can be ironed out – then you are ready to accept the notion that pulling on the bent penis can magically remove that kink. If it were only that simple and worked that well.
You will notice that none of the advertisements for the magical herbs or mechanical penis stretchers explain how they work. The reason there is no explanation is because they do not affect the Peyronie’s plaque, which is at the heart of Peyronie’s disease.
For additional discussion to the question, “What is Peyronie’s disease?” please go to Peyronie’s disease discussion.
Penis Surgery to Treat Peyronie’s Plaque
Peyronie’s surgery from correction to amputation
It is not uncommon for a man to learn that he has Peyronie’s disease and to have his doctor immediately recommend penis surgery to attempt to remove the Peyronie’s plaque or straightened his curved penis.
When faced with even a mild degree of penis curvature someone might think that penile surgery is the only treatment option. It seems to me from my perspective in talking to a dozen men each week about their history with Peyronie’s disease that many of them are given strong pressure to have surgery far too early in the process.
It seems they are not being told that many who undergo penis surgery end up with numerous side effects like pain, numbness or loss of all sensation of the penis, additional loss of length and girth greater than their PD gave to them, greater curvature than their PD gave to them, and total impotence. I frequently communicate with men who have more pain, distortion and loss of sexual ability after penile surgery than before it.
In a desperate effort to satisfy their sexual partner, and under false expectation of how easy and safe the surgery will be, men sometimes make matters worse with Peyronie’s disease surgery. Worse yet, it often happens that a man will have a second Peyronie’s surgery to correct the errors and problems created by the first Peyronie’s surgery – only to have even greater problems after the second surgical attempt.
Peyronie’s surgery to the extreme
The worse case of failed Peyronie’s disease surgery I ever spoke to occurred sometime in 2006. I received a phone call from a man who asked if I guaranteed the treatment we present in the PDI website. I told him that no medical procedure or therapy is ever guaranteed – even aspirin. I said there is no such thing as a medical guarantee provided anywhere in the world because of the complexity of human physiology. I asked him why he was interested in a guarantee. He said he was desperate for something to help his terribly curved penis that had gotten progressively worse after each of three separate penis surgeries. He said he was scheduled to have his fourth penis surgery in two weeks, but he would cancel that surgery if I could give him a guarantee that the PDI process would correct his problem. I told him I was sorry that I could not make such a guarantee, and said I doubted his surgeon was going to guarantee the next operation. He corrected me. He told me that the next surgery was going to “fix’ his problem because the next operation was for the surgeon to amputate – completely cut off – his penis!
He went on to explain that his penis was now just a tiny two inch mass of twisted scar tissue; he had no feeling in his penis; for the last two years when he urinated he would get his abdomen wet; his wife was long gone and he felt that suicide was his only other option, so having his penis cut off made sense to him.
I was shocked. Just as I was starting to explain that I could not guarantee his results at this late stage in his problem I heard a click, and the phone was silent. The entire conversation took less than five minutes, but it was the most powerful discussion I have ever had with any of my Peyronie’s men. I will never forget the empty and desperate tone of his voice.
Penis surgery for a man who already has Peyronie’s disease presents a greater risk than for someone who does not have a Peyronies problem:
- High degree contracture due to fibrous tissue buildup, resulting in greater curvature than prior to surgery.
- Greater chance for numbness or total loss of sensation, or Peyronie’s pain,
- Greater chance for impotence.
Start with conservative Peyronie’s treatment, then penis surgery if it fails
I am not saying that a bad outcome will happen to all men who have Peyronie’s surgery, but it can and does happen so the possibility should be clearly kept in mind before rushing into surgery. Every day I hear from men who tell me their doctor on the first visit suggested penis surgery to “correct” their Peyronie’s disease.
It is my opinion that it is safer and wiser to take a more conservative route of care using the Alternative Medicine form of natural Peyronie’s treatment options that have been presented here since 2002, before considering surgery.
How to Straighten a Curved Penis
Penile curvature and Peyronie’s disease
Before discussing how to straighten a curved penis, it would be wise to consider if reducing penile curvature in your situation is a necessary and advisable thing to do.
If you know for a fact that you have Peyronie’s disease, it is my opinion that it is always wise to attempt to treat your problem – even if it is only minor and does not interfere with intercourse at the time. Many men suggest to me that since their curved penis is not causing any sexual problem they are not going to do anything about getting rid of their Peyronies problem. They say they will only worry about having PD if they cannot engage in intercourse. Otherwise they intend to just leave it alone.
It is unwise to delay effort to straighten a curved penis for three reasons:
- Many times a small penile curvature can suddenly become bad enough to interfere with intercourse
- The longer Peyronie’s disease persists the more difficult it can be to treat
- A curved penis is unstable during intercourse. The longer your penile curvature continues you take an unnecessary risk every time you engage in sexual intercourse that your curved penis could suddenly bend and buckle, causing additional or worse injury on top of what you currently have.
If you are not sure you have Peyronie’s disease, please see Peyronie’s pictures because it might be unnecessary to use any treatment procedures. It is best to seek a medical opinion about your curved penis to determine the exact cause and diagnosis of your situation.
Lifelong curved penis
In those cases where a man has had a curved penis all his life, it is still possible to use a few techniques that are discussed on this website to straighten a curved penis that is not related to Peyronie’s disease. The Peyronie’s treatment that might be successful to reverse a normally curved penis are:
- Gentle Manual Penis Stretching Technique © – done without dangerous or painful penis stretcher devices.
- PMD DMSO, in combination with copper peptides (Super CP Serum) and vitamin E concentrate.
- Neprinol
The idea behind this approach is to soften and reduce as much soft tissue as possible within the contracted scar tissue, while using gentle manual penile stretching to straighten your curved penis; approaching the problem from two different directions at the same time.
Straighten a curved penis due to Peyronie’s disease
Regardless of the duration of Peyronie’s disease or how severe the curved penis, it is possible to make changes to the degree of abnormal penis bending and distortion. There is no way to predict how much correction can be earned; sometimes it is complete reversal of curvature and other times the correction is only minor – but everyone seems to note some degree of improvement. The real factor that seems to determine if a man succeeds or not is the amount of time and effort he devotes to his problem.
Now that you know how to work to straighten a curved penis it is time to get busy. You will never know for sure until you do your best to correct your penile curvature, and now is the best time to do it.
Difficulty Finding the Peyronie’s Plaque
Peyronie’s disease plaque
Let’s clear up the confusion about the Peyronie’s plaque, the fibrous scar-like tissue that is the most common characteristic of Peyronie’s disease. Many people when reading “scar” automatically think they should see it on the skin surface; for this reason I prefer the term Peyronie’s plaque.
Peyronie’s plaque is usually a flat or slightly elevated mass of fibrous tissue just under the skin, in a thin but tough membrane of the penis known as the tunica albuginea. Sometimes it is cord-like or nodular, but usually it lies flat making it difficult to locate.
Peyronie’s plaque is not in any way related to plaque material that line artery walls. It is benign, meaning it is not cancerous and it is not a tumor. Peyronie’s disease and this fibrous material is not in any way contagious, and is not in any way the result of any transmittable disease or microorganism – thus there is no way for a sexual partner to “catch’ the Peyronie’s plaque.
The mystery of Peyronie’s disease
For a male health problem that affects up to nine percent of the adult population, it is amazing that practically no man ever hears about PD until the day he is given the diagnosis. It is this shock – a “mystery” condition that comes out of the blue, for which there is no known cause and no known cure that can wreck a man’s life. While caught off guard, totally confused and shocked upon first learning about Peyronie’s disease, a man is often does not ask all the standard questions and does not remember the information as he receives his diagnosis.
With so many details pouring into his ears, and so many questions rolling around in this brain, it is easy to understand why a man can leave his doctors office and not remember much about the mystery condition. Even the doctor’s explanation about a Peyronie’s plaque can become confused, making it sound like it is related to the blood vessels.
Location of Peyronie’s plaque suggested by penile curvature
You can usually count on finding your internal plaque on the concave part of a curved penis. If a plaque is located on the topside of the penile shaft (the most common location), the penis will bend upward. A plaque on the underside causes a downward penile curvature. A plaque on the left lateral side of the penis causes a curvature to the left, and a Peyronie’s plaque on the right lateral side of the penis causes a curvature to the right.
Many times a distortion develops on both top and side, or top and bottom, resulting in twists, hourglass deformities or indentation, even shortening of the penis.
Peyronies plaque is elusive
Each week I receive emails asking, “Since my doctor examined me and could not find any Peyronie’s plaque material, and I cannot see a scar, do you think I really have Peyronie’s disease?”
There is never an EXTERNAL scar or plaque in Peyronie’s disease that can be seen. The Peyronie’s plaque is always an internal mass of fibrous tissue that is sometimes called a scar, but is not a scar in the usual sense. Peyronie’s plaques or ‘scars” are only sometimes obvious, while at other times they cannot be found if a person’s life depended on it. Ultimately, if you have Peyronie’s disease you must assume it is there and you should try as many different tactics as you can to find your scar(s) because having a clear and accurate information will help your Peyronie’s disease treatment effort.
To find the internal Peyronie’s plaque, sometimes it is helpful to think about it being much larger than you have previously imagined; mentally expand the size of the scar you are looking for. If you were looking for a “pea” before and couldn’t find it, start looking for a “postage stamp” or a “thumb nail” size structure. This change of the mental image increases your odds to detect it.
When the plaque cannot be located, but there is still pain and distortion of any kind, a diagnosis of PD can still be made. This is so because the fibrous plaque can be so:
1. Small – it cannot be found
2. Soft – it blends into the other tissue and cannot be detected
3. Deep – it cannot be reached easily
4. Large and flat – that the edges are not determined, almost like something that is so close to you that you do not see it because you are looking far away
When plaque is never found it is because of a combination of two or more of these factors – deep and small, or soft, large and flat, or deep, soft and doctor error, and so on.
It is common to have difficulty locating the plaque for the first time. Sometimes it is best to forget about finding a “scar.” Instead just try to find something – anything – within the mass of erectile tissue that feels unlike the other tissue. Finding something unlike the rest of the penis tissue will help define the problem tissue that can be difficult to locate. It might be you have an unreasonable expectation of what a “scar” or Peyronie’s plaque should feel like, making it easy to miss what is rather obvious to someone else with experience in this regard.
After an unusual tissue is found, mark its location on the penis with a marker pen or something that will stay on the skin for a few days. Return to that location each day to re-evaluate it. You want to determine if it becomes easier to make sense of it, so you can monitor it during your Peyronie’s treatment.
Curved penis and Peyronie’s Disease
Can a curved penis be normal?
One of the common questions I am asked is if a lifelong curved penis could be Peyronie’s disease. The fast answer is that not all penile curvature or bends are abnormal, or even a problem. If you have had a bent penis all your life it is probably not PD.
To help readers make sense of the situation, a longer answer is that a curved penis might indicate Peyronie’s disease under these two basic situations:
- Curved penis that occurs with other signs and symptoms:
A. Pain – the pain of Peyronie’s disease can be variable
i. Constant
ii. Only when erect
iii. Only when non-erect
iv. Occasional
B. Nodule or chord of fibrous tissue (Peyronie’s plaque) present somewhere under the surface of the shaft, usually located on the concave side of the curved penis C. Penile curvature, bend or distortion not present earlier
D. Loss of sexual function - Sudden appearance of penile distortion or bend that was not present earlier in life
Causes of a normally curved penis
Everyone has some degree of difference or asymmetry between one side of the body and the other. I can just about be 100% certain that if you looked into a mirror you would notice not one, but many, differences in the appearance of your face:
- One eye shaped differently than the other.
- Wrinkles around the mouth or eyes that are different on one side of the face than the other.
- Nose and nostrils not even on the face.
- Mouth crooked.
- Center of chin not lined up with the tip of the nose or the space between the eyes.
- Ears shaped differently.
- Cheek bones not curved the same.
While all of this relates to the face, but can also be said of the hands, feet, legs, abdomen – or penis. All parts of our body demonstrate slight irregularities and imperfections that make us human. These are the small and unimportant things that make us unique individuals.
Inside the penis are three long tubular chambers that contain erectile tissue – one corpora spongeosa and two corpora cavernosa. If there is any difference in the length, width or straightness of these three chambers it will result in an erection that is curved or imbalanced in some way.
When a small boy first notices his erections he accepts them for what they are. Later he begins to question and wonder if he is as good as other people, and does not like being different from other people who he assumes are all perfect. Don’t allow a curved penis to become more than what it is.
It would be a good idea to have your curved penis evaluated by a doctor who has experience in this area if you also have recently started to have pain, a nodule or mass of fibrous tissue, and/or reduced sexual ability.
Your curved penis may or may not be Peyronie’s disease, therefor this diagnosis is always best left to the experts.
Visit the Peyronie’s Disease Institute website for information about the Peyronie’s disease natural treatments.
Peyronie’s Disease and Masturbation
Masturbation prominently factors into Peyronie’s disease either as a cause of PD, or later as a man attempts to cope with his curved penis.
Masturbation is the self-stimulation of the female or male genitals to arouse sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm or sexual climax. It is commonly performed by touching, stroking, or in some way pleasurably stimulating the penis or clitoris until orgasm occurs.
Peyronie’s disease intersects with masturbation in particular for several reasons:
- Older boys and men of all ages can injure themselves during rough masturbation rituals with the potential to lead to Peyronie’s disease, especially if genetically predisposed.
- Men who are unable or too embarrassed to expose their deformity to their sexual partner often resort to masturbation to release sexual tension.
- Men who are unable to engage in sexual intercourse because of severe penile distortions can receive masturbation from them partner as a way to share sexual pleasure, as a substitute for traditional intercourse.
- Women who are denied sexual intercourse because of a partner’s severe penile distortion or erectile dysfunction related to Peyronie’s disease can be masturbated as a way to share sexual pleasure, as a substitute for traditional intercourse.
- Women who are denied sexual intercourse because of her partner’s emotional and physical withdrawal, thus isolated from the man with Peyronie’s disease, can use masturbation to release sexual tension while he is working out his own problems.
General masturbation comments
At one time or another or all life long, just about everyone masturbates – male and female. It is an extremely common behavior, even among people with access to sexual intercourse and other erotic outlets with a partner. While in one national study 95% of males and 89% of females reported they have masturbated, those who reported they had never masturbated admitted they would be reluctant to admit it if they did – thus these numbers are probably low.
For young children masturbation is a normal part of youthful exploration, becoming the first sexual act. Most people continue to masturbate in adulthood, and many do so throughout their lives. The most common explanation given why people limit or avoid masturbation is the shame and guilt that arises from religious and societal pressure.
Once regarded as a perversion and sign of a mental problem, masturbation is now seen as a normal, healthy sexual activity that is pleasant, fulfilling, acceptable, and safe. Masturbation is only considered a problem under certain circumstances:
- Directly or indirectly inhibits sexual activity with a partner.
- Causes significant distress if done compulsively and uncontrollably, against the greater desire of the individual to stop.
- Interferes with daily activities of life.
- Compulsively done in public or at socially inappropriate times.
No longer considered as being harmful, masturbation is thought to improve sexual health and interpersonal relationships if after learning what is personally pleasurable this knowledge is shared with a partner. Especially in the situation of Peyronie’s disease many partners use mutual masturbation to develop and refine techniques for a more satisfying sexual relationship, when more traditional sexual outlets are not an option.
Masturbation can contribute to sexual dysfunction in Peyronie’s disease
Men who habitually masturbate in ways that are not common with a sex partner – employing mechanical measures that produce an unusually intense stimulus, stroking with great pressure or unnatural friction – can become so accustomed and dependent on that particular level or type of stimulus that partner-sex becomes insufficient for sexual arousal and leads to retarded ejaculation. When a man experiences this sexual dysfunction he finds it difficult or even impossible to climax during more conventional partnered sex.
Michael A. Perelman, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry, reproductive medicine, and urology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and the president of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research states, “Any man experiencing any sexual dysfunction should ask himself if he’s masturbating in ways that produce sensations that differ from those he gets from his partner’s hand, mouth, or vagina. If so, then he should consider what he could say to her to make the stimulation more similar — and how he could change the way he masturbates to make it feel more similar to what his partner does.”
Safe masturbation in Peyronie’s disease
Generally, the best and safest masturbation you can enjoy by yourself or with a partner is that which is most like vaginal stimulation. This can be as simple as using the hand in a fist to surround the erection while applying upward and downward stroking, oral stimulus, or sex toys that feel like a vagina. This kind of masturbation is therapeutic once the Peyronie’s curvature has been corrected and more traditional sexual encounters can be enjoyed once again.
Lastly, because penile injury is thought to be a prime cause of Peyronie’s disease, it is mandatory that all masturbation be gentle and well lubricated to avoid worsening of an already bad situation. For more information, click on “Peyronie’s Disease and Sex.”
Peyronie’s Symptoms
Do I have Peyronie’s disease?
When someone asks about Peyronie’s disease symptoms they usually want to know if they have Peyronie’s disease. This is a diagnosis that is not always easy to make, since the actual signs and symptoms of Peyronie’s disease can be tricky at times.
In order to answer this question it is first important to remember that a symptom is something a person feels or experiences inside, meaning it is subjective. A symptom is what someone experiences as a result or during an illness, injury or disease. Symptoms can include chills, Peyronie’s pain, shaking, shivering, nausea, or dizziness. Symptoms are reported by the patient to help a doctor diagnose a problem.
In the case of Peyronie’s symptoms the only subjective finding would be the penile pain that can be variable; pain can be felt constantly, only when erect, only when non-erect or only when flaccid. In addition this pain can be extremely mild, very severe, or something between. Because the Peyronie’s pain is not always present – and is sometimes totally absent – it is not always a reliable way to make a diagnosis of PD.
You might say a sign is the opposite of a symptom. A sign is an outward or obvious physical indicator or manifestation of illness, injury or disease. In this way it is said that a sign is objective, since it is always something that another person can detect, measure in some way or see that helps to make a diagnosis. Some common signs are rapid pulse, elevated body temperature, low blood pressure, bleeding, a rash or open wound, bruising, to name but a few.
In the case of Peyronie’s disease, there are only a few signs or outward findings that are used to make a diagnosis. These signs can be just as variable as the Peyronie’s pain, such as the elusive Peyronie’s plaque or scar, a curved penis or some other distortion, and impotence or reduced sexual ability. Because each of these Peyronie’s signs are also not always present – and can be sometimes totally absent – it is not always a simple or easy thing to make this diagnosis.
Very often only a few Peyronie’s symptoms and signs are available to make a diagnosis, with perhaps the most common being some type of curved penis or distortion.
Click here for more information about Peyronie’s disease.
Penis Doctors or Peyronie’s Doctors? – Take Your Pick
Doctors who specialize in Peyronie’s disease
When you think about going to a “Peyronie’s specialist,” you should understand a few things that could make all the difference in the world to you. You should also know that Alternative Medicine is your safest and most logical approach to Peyronie’s treatment – more about that at the end of this article.
Each month I am asked for the name of a few Peyronie’s doctors; someone who specializes in the treatment of Peyronie’s disease, in a particular part of the country or a specific city. My answer that I do not know of any such doctor always seems to be a surprise. Often a follow up question is posed in which I am then asked for the names of penis doctors, and again I give the same answer.
For anyone interested in finding a Peyronie’s doctor, first consider that Peyronie’s disease is known as “the doctor’s nightmare.” Notice, the name is not “a man’s nightmare,’ or “a curved penis nightmare,” or “a patient nightmare,” but “doctor’s nightmare.” This suggests how much doctors in general do not like dealing with Peyronie’s disease. The average doctor does not like to deal with the diagnosis and treatment of Peyronie’s disease, as well as the many valid complaints and exaggerated demands of both the men and women who must live with this problem. Frankly, we men with Peyronie’s disease are often a royal pain in the butt for an MD to deal with.
Peyronie’s specialists
Most often it is the urologists who come closest to the idea of being penis doctors or Peyronie’s doctors. But even they often want to avoid the many frustrations and long explanations that are a part of working with men who have Peyronie’s disease. I guess that 99.4% of men who are given a diagnosis of Peyronie’s disease have not once ever heard of it before it is dumped on them. That this condition exists is a total shock to the man who first learns he has the problem. And just like the denial phase of someone who learns of the death of someone, there is a denial phase when first being told that the reason for the penile curvature, pain, or strange lump is an interesting thing called Peyronie’s disease that has no known cause and no known medical cure – other than Peyronie’s surgery. This news creates a lot of denial issues in the patient that the doctor must take the time to explain away.
It is said that no one is happy while dealing with Peyronie’s disease. Another reason the doctor is not happy is because he or she has no standardized or accepted form of medical treatment to rely upon. Generally, there are four three basic approaches for managing this problem medically:
- Offer no treatment, but simply monitor the progression of the problem. Suggest the patient come back in six months to determine if the problem has deteriorated enough to warrant the risks of surgery.
- Offer the patient to either “try verapamil or cholchicine or POTABA for a while, although I have not had much luck with any of them, or you can always use some vitamin E if you would like.” This kind of low key and unenthusiastic recommendation is based on the fact that none of these approaches work, and the doctor knows it. The MD is put in a tough position because he or she cannot help PD, and this is a known fact from the start. Talk about a negative situation that only gets worse as the penis shrinks or sex becomes difficult as a curved penis develops.
- Suggest surgery right away.
- Go home, ignore it, and try to learn to live with it.
These four options all seem wrong to the thinking patient. Yet, the doctor feels obligated to offer some kind of treatment when none actually exists, and he knows ahead of time that the patient will be upset when nothing helps. Long explanations, distrust, and complaints will follow over a few office visits until the patient figures out the doctor really has no Peyronie’s disease treatment. The doctor knows ahead of time he will look incompetent and non-caring no matter what he does. Hence the term, “doctor’s nightmare.’
For all these reasons only a few medical doctors have focused on Peyronie’s disease treatment. Some of those who work in this area of urology are:
Thomas Lue, MD – Los Angeles, CA
Culley Carson, MD – Chapel Hill, NC
Lawrence Levine, MD – Chicago, IL
Martin K. Gelbard, MD, Los Angeles, CA
Sudhakar Krishnamurti, MD – Hyderabad, India
These doctors are essentially using the same drugs as any general practitioner or urologist, with perhaps maybe the surgery they perform being different in some cases. You need to understand that while these doctors can be called Peyronie’s specialists because they hold themselves out to being more interested in or spending more time in the area of Peyronie’s disease treatment and diagnosis, there is not that much different they can offer than the doctor down the street in your town. The great difference with these doctors is the number of people they see who have PD, so they will have more experience in this area.
For this reason when some calls to ask about a Peyronie’s doctor, I suggest they just contact a local urologist they have confidence in and stick with him.
Since there is no accepted standard medical treatment for Peyronie’s disease, and so many doctors suggest not doing anything for the first 6-18 months, I strongly suggest that a person consider building up his own ability to heal and repair the Peyronie’s plaque or scar. Information can be found at natural Peyronie’s disease treatment.