Exact Therapy and Dosage for Peyronie’s Disease Treatment
Fine tuning Peyronie’s treatment key to success
Only you can determine what therapy to use or the exact dosage in your Peyronie’s disease treatment plan. Using the information found on the PDI website and “Peyronie’s Disease Handbook” as guides, each man must determine the specifics of his therapy plan for himself. To help you further, for your specific questions, I am always pleased to offer ideas and information about what I have learned since successfully treating my own PD in 2002 and the many hundreds of men I work with each year since then.
I can give you basic ideas and general suggestions. However, for the exact way to treat Peyronie’s disease it is important to remember that each case is different and must be worked out by each individual. There are no short cuts to this process.
Oh, I can hear you telling yourself right now, “But, I am not a doctor. I do not know about these things. This is too complicated. What do I do? How do I get started? I will never be able to do this!”
You can use any small or large group of therapies as a starting point. From this starting point you simply monitor and observe the response of your Peyronie’s scar to your treatment plan. The small, medium or large plan can all be modified to suit your thinking. Generally, the larger and more broad-based the plan, the better and faster it works to assist the healing process that you are attempting to promote.
Very often the starting point is based on personal finances and how determined a man is to be successful in his Peyronie’s treatment. Many men think, “I really would like to use all the different elements of the Large Plan. It makes sense to approach my problem from so many different directions, but I just can’t afford it right now. But, I can manage the expense of the Medium Plan.” Well, there is your answer.
You get the Medium Plan, you use it faithfully, you use it aggressively, and you monitor your scar for changes in the size, shape, density and surface qualities. If you notice changes in your Peyronie’s disease you simply stay with that plan. If you do not notice changes in your Peyronie’s disease problem after a few weeks of treatment you begin to make small changes in your plan until the size, shape, density and surface qualities of your scar(s) change. All of this is explained in great detail in the “Peyronie’s Disease Handbook.” Knowing the exact size, shape, density and surface quality of each scar is absolutely essential to your success in Peyronie’s treatment. If you do not have this book, get it so that you will know what you are doing as you advance in treating yourself – otherwise you are just guessing.
You must understand, I have absolutely no idea what is required for you to be successful in eliminating your Peyronie’s plaque. How could I? I do not know you. I have not examined you. You are not a patient of mine. But I can offer suggestions and ideas for you to use to guide your own therapy plan for the greatest success you can achieve.
What I think is not important in regard to selecting a therapy or dosage. For that matter, what you think is not important in regard to dosage.
What you determine by trial and error – and hard work – to create your successful plan using the dosage level necessary to make positive changes in your PD is what is important.
Every medical doctor alive practices medicine using the trial-and-error method in this way. If you are prescribed a drug for insomnia, the starting dose is just a good guess what might work for you. The doctor might tell you to take one pill two hours before bedtime. He or she will have you come back to the office after a few weeks to see how you are doing. If the drug is not working you will be given a different dosage, perhaps two pills three hours before bedtime. If that does not work, your prescription might be changed to include a second drug or further increases in dosage. This trial-and-error method of medical practice has been used for thousands of years and is time-tested. It is how you will also treat yourself to achieve the best success you can against your Peyronie’s disease.
Peyronie’s disease treatment dosage
Dosage is determined by the daily level of all therapies needed to cause favorable change in your scar(s). Of course if you are taking five different internal therapies (vitamin E, vitamin C, Neprinol, Acetyl-L-carnitine and PABA), and two or three external therapies (DMSO, manual penis stretching video, Genesen pens), each one must be individually determined. While you use all internal and external therapies in your total therapy plan you must monitor the size, shape, density and surface quality of your scar(s) to note at what dosage level changes begin in the scar material. It is as simple – and difficult – as that. That is why no clear dosage numbers are offered to you since everyone seems to use different internal and external therapies, in addition to doing them in different ways. In this sense, since each man is different, and each man follows a different plan, each man must determine what he must do to improve his scar behavior. Again, the procedure to determine scar size, shape, density and surface quality is explained in great detail in “Peyronie’s Disease Handbook.”
The correct dosage of any therapy product is not determined from a chart. The chart that you receive with your first order only tells you the average range of how most men take the therapies. Your dosage should be what you need to take daily to cause changes in your PD scar. The dosage for you is what you learn works for you. No one can tell you what you need to take. You have to determine that by your observation what makes the scar size, shape, density, and surface quality change.
If you run into a problem, you can always send an email with your question and I will do my best to guide you through it.
Using this system of self-guided treatment you stand your best chance to use Alternative Medicine to increase your ability to heal and repair the damage to the delicate tunica albuginea known as Peyronie’s disease.
Peyronie’s Disease Surgery
Surgical Peyronie’s treatment has many limitations
The Peyronie’s Disease Institute is not against Peyronie’s disease surgery.
The Peyronie’s Disease Institute is against the abuse of surgical treatment of Peyronie’s disease. Considerable surgical risk exists for any man with PD who has an operation to attempt correction of penile distortion. Adverse outcomes and worsening of the original problem are associated with even a small incision (or injection) made to a penis that already has demonstrated the tendency to create excess Peyronie’s scar formation.
The overuse and abuse of Peyronie’s surgery should be suspected when the treating doctor does not follow reasonable and conservative guidelines to consider a patient a surgical candidate. The man with Peyronie’s disease should fulfill these basic points:
- Severity, the most important indicator. The deformity must be severe enough to seriously interfere or stop sexual intercourse.
- Adequate time for healing and spontaneous recovery must be given. Usually thought to be from 12-18 months from the time of onset of PD.
- Non-responsive to a fair trial of medical therapy. In practice, many doctors attempt only one form of medical treatment. When that fails the patient is told surgery is the only other option. It appears that doctors know the poor results achieved by medication to make a difference with Peyronie’s disease that they are quick to want to skip this step and proceed to the operating room. When vitamin E is offered as a therapy option, it is done so reluctantly and with little hope for success. Further, no instruction is offered for the correct use of vitamin E, or information about the eight different members of the vitamin E family. Since no real help is offered to assure that the patient will use vitamin E correctly, it is no wonder that so many men fail. There is a large body of information available that can assure a man is more successful with vitamin E therapy for his Peyronie’s disease. Using the correct type of vitamin E, and using it correctly in conjunction with other forms of therapy that work synergistically with it, would only increase the chance of success.
- Stable and unchanging scar. This can mean changing for the better or worse. Since so few doctors, and the men with PD, even locate the PD scar, it is doubtful that this criteria is seriously considered.
Risks of Peyronie’s surgery
Surgery does not cure Peyronie’s disease. Because of the unique anatomy and physiology of the penis, the risks of surgery to this area are a little different than other tissues.
- Additional scar formation and possible worsening of PD. Because any man attempting a surgical correction of PD who already has massive scarring, must expect more scarring to develop as a result of that surgery. It is a known fact – seldom discussed with a PD patient before surgery – that surgery for PD will result in more PD, sooner or later.
- Loss of penis size. Extensive scar tissue that is severe and persistent enough to cause a deformity serious enough to justify Peyronies surgery, represents a large mass of internal scar tissue. Surgery will remove a large and irreplaceable loss of connective tissue and loss of elasticity of the tissue that is not removed. If it is not bad enough that surgical correction and return of sexual function cannot be guaranteed because of the possibility of complications, every surgical candidate must understand that there will always be a loss of length and diameter of the penis. Many men tell me that this secondary consequential loss of penis size is hardly discussed before surgery. Most men learn about the loss of penis size after it is too late.
- Incomplete straightening, no change, or worsening of the original PD deformity. Loss of elasticity, additional scarring, and damage to the veins of the penis that can occur as a result of surgery, can also reduce or prevent correction of the original PD problem.
- Loss of sensation. Due to anatomical location of important sensory nerves of the penis, PD surgery can slightly, or greatly, or totally, reduce skin sensation and pleasure associated with sexual activity. Temporary reduction of sensation is very common, and permanent sensory loss is less common.
- Loss of erection strength. Surgery cannot help but alter both the inflow and/or outflow of blood to the penis. By disturbing the pneumatic mechanism that creates an erection it is not uncommon for men to report either loss of erectile rigidity (hardness) or inability to maintain an erection (impotence) – and sometimes both.
If a surgeon has been attempting you to undergo PD correction surgery, and you were told the surgical outcomes are “good,” I strongly suggest you get a very clear and detailed explanation for what the surgeon means by “good.” You might think “good” means that you will be perfect again, that your PD will be gone, that you will feel like a teenager. The surgeon might be thinking that “good” means only a one or two inch loss of length, only a 50% chance of loss of penile rigidity, only a 50% loss of skin sensation, and restoring your curve from 90 degrees to only 30 or 40 degrees.
If your surgeon tells you these things are not true, and that surgical results are “excellent” and that you are worrying too much about such a safe and simple operation, ask the surgeon to put that in writing. Ask the surgeon to guarantee that the surgery will not result in impotence, loss of skin sensation, that you will have a completely straight penis, and that your PD will never return. You will not get that guarantee because no one can say what will happen to you as a result of PD surgery.
What is good for the surgeon might not be good for the man with Peyronie’s disease.
Peyronie’s treatment sensations
Strange reaction to Peyronies therapy
Every now and then I get a question about the variety of unusual sensations and reactions that men notice during Peyronie’s treatment, or immediately after, a particular therapy used in Peyronies treatment. These are the Peyronie’s disease therapies most often associated with this kind of response:
- Genesen Acutouch Pointers
- Manual stretching method found on the CD
- DMSO PMD formula
- Super CP Serum copper peptide ointment
Most often the sensation is described as a “tingling” or “aching” or “electrical” sensation in or near the area of treatment. It can be felt during or within the hour any of these therapies are applied. The intensity can be variable from time to time it is felt; sometimes very mild and hardly noticeable, and at other times enough to wake a person from a sound sleep. Sometimes the response occurs each time the treatment is done, and for other men the reaction occurs every now and then at irregular times.
If you experience this kind of reaction in the area of your Peyronie’s scar, do not become alarmed. It is common and usually signals some good response to your Peyronie’s treatment as changes are occurring in the condition of the scar.
This is not something that has been studied much in the scientific literature since those researchers prescribing drugs or standard medical procedures for PD do not get the kind of reactions and responses that occur while following the Peyronie’s Disease Institute therapy principles. They do not report this kind of reaction because they do not make the kind of rapid changes that are seen in men using the PDI protocols.
Therefore, there is no research that has been done to explain this phenomenon. It is my theory that these reactions are due to the rapid changes that take place in the tissue in and around the scar material. During or after a particular Peyronie’s treatment a change may occur in the tension and length of the otherwise contracted scar material of the penis. These alterations of tension and position of the tissue layers could easily explain the unusual sensations that occur. I find from my own treatment experience, and that of other men who have had improvement in their Peyronie’s disease, that these “moving” or “tingling” or “aching” sensations appear when the scar is undergoing some level of change (improvement). Many men come to count on the appearance of these changes to herald improvement of their scars from time to time.
It is most probably NOT just one therapy or just the one product causing this usual sensation. It is closer to the truth to say that these sensations are the sum total of all the synergistic efforts that are included in your therapy plan. The problem (a good problem) with using so many of these therapies together is that you will never be able to accurately say which one did the most or least for you. A synergistic Alternative Medicine therapy plan is a group effort, with all therapies making some contribution to whatever happens to you.
Please email your questions about Peyronie’s disease treatment to this blog.
Peyronie’s disease and baby boomers
Peyronie’s disease: male health problem no one knows about
If you are a member of the baby boomer generation and have never heard of Peyronie’s (pay-row-neez) disease, you are not alone. However, if you are a male baby boomer or married to one, you are in the prime age group to experience a problem you know nothing about. This is so because Peyronies disease primarily affects men between 50 to 65 years of age, although an age range of 18 to 80 years has been reported, with an average age at onset of 53.
Few people know about the problem until they need Peyronie’s disease treatment. This is why it is important for all baby boomers to know about, and how to avoid, it because this health problem can easily ruin your life.
Peyronie’s disease remains one of the most perplexing and difficult urologic diseases to treat; it has been called “the doctor’s nightmare”. Most everything about this condition (cause, progression, symptoms, age distribution, response to treatment) is variable and unique to the man who has it. The great variability of Peyronie’s disease that makes it difficult to study and to understand, also makes it almost impossible to treat like other medical conditions.
It is a complex problem that is much more common than most people realize. Estimates suggest that up to eight out of 100 men over the age of 40 have Peyronie’s disease – that is a lot of people worldwide – and still only a small percent of people have ever heard of it.
People are reluctant to discuss this problem because it involves the male organ. For this reason it is difficult to develop accurate information and statistics, especially since men are so shy on one hand, yet also inclined to exaggerate.
Definition of Peyronie’s disease
Peyronie’s disease can best be understood as an exaggerated wound healing in response to an injury in which an excessive amount of Peyronie’s scar tissue develops within the man’s shaft.
Peyronie’s disease (also known by over 12 different names, among which is “iduratio penis plastica”) is very special disorder of the connective tissue in which fibrous “scars” or “plaques” develop usually after direct injury. This Peyronie’s plaque occurs in a special tissue of the shaft known as the tunica albuginea, a fibrous chamber or envelope that surrounds the two penile cylindrical shaped masses of spongy tissue known as the corpora cavernosa. The corpora cavernosa enlarge during sexual excitement, and the tunica albuginea covering, are designed to expand and elongate. If there is fibrous scar or plaque material in the tunica albuginea, the expansion and elongation cannot develop properly resulting in bending, weakness, shortening and incomplete filling of the organ. Sometimes this distortion is mild (just a few degrees) and does not affect the ability to perform, while at other times the distortion can be extreme (more than 90 degrees) resulting in greatly adverse consequences.
A certain degree of normal penile curvature can and does occur in some men. This is a benign and natural condition many men are born with, commonly referred to as congenital curvature; this is not Peyronie’s disease.
Peyronie’s disease signs and symptoms
Four common findings of Peyronie’s disease:
- Pain – caused by inflammation and stretching of internal tissues in response to injury and distortion; can be present constantly or only during erection
- Nodule or mass formation – variable size lumps or elongated cords can develop in one or multiple areas; sometimes these are difficult or impossible to locate depending on the density, depth and size of the scar formation
- Curvature or distortion – caused by presence of one or more nodules or masses of scar tissue in the tunica albuginea, preventing normal expansion during erection; can be minor to gross in appearance
- Reduced sexual ability – due to physical distortion that prevents penetration or due to reduced firmness that also prevents penetration (erectile dysfunction).
The onset of Peyronie’s disease symptoms can be sudden or slow, but often appears within a month or two after direct injury. The pain of Peyronie’s disease is extremely variable; from hardly noticeable to the kind of pain that prevents sleep. Peyronie’s pain is worse in the beginning, usually gradually improving over time – improvement in a few weeks while others continue for years. For these reasons Peyronie’s pain is not a reliable way to judge the severity or calculate the time for eventual recovery.
Even though Peyronie’s disease is a male health problem, women are also affected by it. They are indirectly and adversely affected by the erectile dysfunction, organ curvature and distortion that make intercourse often impossible, as well as loss of organ size that often occurs over time. Additionally, and perhaps even to a greater degree than men, woman bear the brunt of the mood swings, anger, brooding and ill-temper that accompany their partner’s Peyronies problem.
Treatment of Peyronie’s disease
There is no standard or accepted medical treatment for Peyronie’s disease since no drug is proven to eliminate the scar within the shaft. The only accepted and available medical treatment is surgery. However, given enough time after Peyronie’s surgery the condition will only re-appear in a worsened presentation. This surgical outcome is made bleaker by knowing that even the first Peyronie’s surgery can result in total loss of sensation (anesthesia), increased pain and increased curvature and greater scar formation than before surgery, and in some cases amputation.
The Peyronie’s Disease Institute has specialized for the last eight years in the use of Alternative Medicine therapies and techniques that are found to be successful in perhaps 60-80% of cases. None of the therapies are known to result in adverse reactions or side effects. For more information about the Alternative Medicine approach, visit Peyronie’s disease treatment.
Prevention of Peyronie’s disease
With so many variable aspects of this problem to consider, it is important to know that in addition to everything else, there is no universal agreement about the cause of Peyronies. Some say that injury alone cannot start the problem as we have described above, but that other genetic and metabolic factors must also be present. The Peyronie’s Disease Institute takes the position that this is true. However, if a man never sustains direct injury to the area he is far less likely to develop Peyronies.
With age not working in the favor of any baby boomer couple, it is important to evaluate all situations in which direct injury can affect this area – especially sexual activity. This requires that special caution is exercised if a baby boomer gentleman finds he no longer has the usual firmness he previously possessed (erectile dysfunction). Attempting intercourse with a partially flaccid organ can result in sudden buckling or abrupt bending during insertion or the sex act itself. Another way to prevent injury is to modify the techniques used during sexual relations. The single most common injury that starts Peyronie’s disease occurs when the female partner is on top, and she loses hold of him while she thrusts down, jamming and painfully bending him against her upper thigh. To avoid this kind of injury it is important to not use any female-superior position, but to use other techniques in which physical contact is controlled, firm and not likely to disengage during activity.
Even if baby boomers have never heard of this terrible condition that robs a couple of one of the greatest pleasures of life, it happens every day. Now that you know about Peyronie’s disease you can do a lot to protect the best years of your life.
Dr. Theodore Herazy has practiced Alternative Medicine for over 40 years, and has directed the Peyronie’s Disease Institute for the last eight years. He has written two books about this problem, “Peyronie’s Disease Handbook” and “Peyronie’s Disease and Sex.” He can be reached at http://www.peyronies-disease-help.com
Peyronie’s plaque or scar
Peyronie’s plaque or scar central issue
The central issue of Peyronie’s disease is the infamous Peyronie’s plaque, also called a scar. Peyronie’s disease typically occurs in men between 40 and 65 years of age, although a range of 16 to 80 years is documented; some experts say it can occur at any age. From personal communication with a particular man, I was told that his own Peyronie’s disease was started after a dog bite to the groin – at the age of 10. Nonetheless, it is most important to recognize that all clinical signs and symptoms of Peyronie’s disease originate from the effects of the plaque upon the internal tissue layers (tunica albuginea) of the penis.
A developing Peyronie’s plaque appears in response to either micro-trauma to the small blood vessels from a single injury of great force, or multiple injuries of a small force. While there is strong evidence that genetic factors and drug factors also influence the start of PD, it is trauma that is usually considered to be the most likely cause of the Peyronies scar, or plaque.
A Peyronie’s plaque on the cellular level initially consists of fibrin threads deposited in a massive network throughout an area of injury within the tunica albuginea of the penis. Peyronie’s plaques, or scars, later combine the dense threads of fibrin connective tissue with reduced and fragmented elastic connective tissue fibers, as well as excessive amounts of type III collagen material, which happens to be specially inclined to excessive scar development. In about one-third of chronic cases of Peyronie’s disease, calcification of the plaque can occur over time. For more technical information about the Peyronies plaque, please go to http://peyronies-disease-help. com/ peyroniespathology.html
The curvature of the Peyronies penis is due to the fact that scar tissue does not stretch as easily or as fully as healthy normal tissue. The normal tunica albuginea is composed of elastin fibers and collagen, although the site of scar tissue from Peyronie’s disease is composed mostly of collagen. This difference in composition of these two tissues is what causes a bent penis to develop during erection.
Eventually as one or more Peyronie’s plaques develop into a mass of hardened tissue in the delicate tunica albuginea, it results in variable pain and penile distortion that most often takes the form of a bend or curve; sexual function is often reduced as a result of direct or indirect affects of Peyronie’s disease, also. The penile curvature of Peyronie’s disease is caused by the dense inelastic scar, or plaque, material that shortens the involved side of the tunica albuginea layer that covers the corpora cavernosa of the penis. In approximately one third of patients, the scarring involves either the top or bottom portion of the penis shaft, occasionally both. The lateral sides of the penis can also be affected by Peyronie’s plaque development, if that area experiences injury.
Peyronie’s plaque not easy to find sometimes
In some men the Peyronies plaque is easily found on manual examination, in others it is found with difficulty, and in some men no Peyronies plaque is ever located. It can be frustrating to have a wicked penis distortion, and still not be able to locate the Peyronie’s plaque.
To locate the plaque or scar material a light and inquisitive touch is most effective. Do not be heavy-handed, or press down into the deeper layers to find the Peyronie’s plaque material, because it is found just below the surface of the skin. And, oh yes, you will never directly see the plaque or scar, since it is not on the surface of the skin, but below. Make peace with the Peyronie’s plaque and do not hate it, just determine how to assist your body to remove it.
To learn about using Alternative Medicine to increase your ability to heal and repair the Peyronie’s plaque, a good place to start is the PDI website at http://peyronies-disease-help.com/ treatmentintroduction.html
Peyronie’s Natural Treatment
Peyronie’s disease natural cures not presented honestly
When a man with Peyronie’s disease investigates the internet for Peyronie’s disease natural treatments, the results are surprising and disappointing. Usually the information is not about Peyronie’s natural treatment in an honest or wide presentation, but simply a limited two or three sentence statement that vitamin E does not help in cases of Peyronie’s disease. The idea presented is that Peyronie’s natural treatment is the use of vitamin E and nothing more and nothing else, and it does not help anyway.
The truth is that the average medical doctor does not know how to use vitamin E as a Peyronie’s natural treatment, and so he or she mismanages the value of the therapy. Any failure is not placed where it belongs – on the doctor – but is assumed to be the failure of vitamin E to help Peyronie’s disease.
What this kind of statement means – “that vitamin E does not help in cases of Peyronie’s disease” – only means that the writer or the doctor does not know how to use vitamin E effectively or correctly to assist the body to correct this problem. It has nothing to do with vitamin E, or any other Peyronie’s natural treatment – but with the way they are used.
Peyronie’s disease natural cures unfair representation
It is not fair to say that vitamin E is not a valid and effective Peyronie’s natural treatment. However, it is accurate that the way the average medical website or medical doctor has extremely limited and biased information against Peyronie’s disease natural cures. It is fair to say that the average medical doctor is strongly biased in favor of drugs and surgery as the primary treatment for any medical condition. In the case of Peyronie’s disease, this is especially perplexing and damaging to someone with Peyronie’s disease looking for genuinely helpful information, since the medical profession admits there is no effective drug to treat this problem and the results of surgery are often poor – at best.
It is also not fair to say that vitamin E is the only Peyronie’s natural treatment that can be employed against Peyronie’s disease. The potential list of Peyronie’s disease natural cures is rather long and varied:
1. Vitamin E – oral and topical, especially the gamma tocopherol faction
2. Vitamin C – best combined with vitamin C
3. PABA – this is a B vitamin, not POTABA which is a drug that is made by the addition of a potassium molecule added to PABA
4. Quercetin – an antioxidant
5. Bromelain – powerful protein enzyme
6. Serrapeptase – powerful protein enzyme
7. Nattokinase – powerful protein enzyme
8. Herbal compounds – Chinese and Ayurvedic types
9. DMSO – dimethyl sulfoxide drives therapy compounds deep into the scar tissue
10. Copper peptides – topical preparation assists scar reorganization
11. Acupuncture – non-invasive techniques used for over 4000 years to help healing
12. Massage – increase blood circulation and tone of local tissue
13. Exercise – increase blood circulation and tone of local tissue
14. Manual penis stretching – gentle non-mechanical method to stretch contracted scar
15. Diet – special protocol to promote tissue alkalinity and healing
The average person for Peyronie’s disease natural treatment information would do well to expand their search beyond biased medical websites and explore the many well researched and diverse Alternative Medicine websites that seriously investigate the subject in a more comprehensive manner.
The Peyronie’s Disease Institute presents over 200 pages of documented information exploring Peyronie’s disease natural treatments along with a Q/A section, survey’s, books, and videos to explore the many diverse options that are available for consideration.
One last thought concerning information about Peyronie’s disease natural cures. There is none. Some unscrupulous individuals promote herbal concoctions and painful mechanical penis stretching devices as Peyronie’s disease natural cures, but they are not anything of the kind. While all of the Peyronie’s disease natural treatments mentioned above when used in an effectively combined treatment plan can help the body to heal and repair the terrible Peyronie’s scar, none of them can be considered a cure in the sense many would hope.
The Peyronie’s Disease Institute offers detailed information and therapy products that when used together in various combinations have helped men all over the world for the last eight years to reduce and sometimes overcome their problem while intelligently using Peyronie’s natural treatment.