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.
Peyronie’s Cure is Where You Find It
Looking at Peyronie’s treatment differently
While it is generally agreed there is no such thing as a Peyronie’s cure, PDI has shown since 2002 that it is certainly possible to reverse Peyronie’s disease and penile curvature with Alternative Medicine when it is done in the correct way.
Peyronie’s disease is primarily concerned with the dreaded fibrous Peyronie’s plaque or internal scar material that can cause a variable degree of penile curvature, pain, sex problems, and reduced penis size. Any true Peyronie’s treatment must address the issue of the fibrous scar. Yet, when men are first diagnosed by a medical doctor they are told there is no known cause of Peyronies disease and no Peyronie’s cure.
Just because the medical profession does not have a drug as a standard Peyronie’s disease treatment, they have assumed the position there is no such thing as a Peyronie’s cure. For this reason MDs do not like to treat Peyronie’s disease. The average medical doctor, even a urologist, has few options for anyone with PD, other than Peyronie’s surgery – which often has poor results.
Peyronie’s disease treatment
The current accepted Peyronie’s disease treatment in a medical office is to do nothing for the first one or two years, while waiting for the Peyronie’s problem to either get better or worse on its own. This is the wait-and-see approach to Peyronie’s treatment is frustrating and irritating to any man who wakes up one morning with the curved penis of Peyronies.
While the medical establishment maintains there is no effective Peyronie’s disease treatment, the Peyronie’s Disease Institute has worked since 2002 using Alternative Medicine in a unique way that proves this is not true. There is a simple and direct method to for Peyronie’s disease treatment that is either misunderstood or overlooked by the medical profession. Those who follow the Peyronie’s Disease Institute treatment concepts sometimes even call it a Peyronie’s cure.
Daily I communicate with angry and defeated men who get no help from the medical profession, who are neglected and given no hope or information to help themselves with their Peyronie’s problem. Men speak of feeling like Peyronie’s orphans.
One of the basic questions of Peyronie’s disease treatment is this: “If my medical doctor says there is nothing that can be done for me, other than surgery, what does that really mean to me? For those who are comfortable with thinking independently, they must decide if there are options outside of medicine that the neighborhood MD does not know about, or even care about.
Natural treatment for Peyronie’s disease
The Peyronie’s Disease Institute was started in 2002 by Dr. Theodore Herazy after he successfully cured his own severe PD with Alternative Medicine. His early experiments with herbs, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other safe natural remedies showed exciting promise for Peyronies help. Over the years he has guided and counseled hundreds of men each year through the treatment maze toward elimination of the scar and distortion of Peyronie’s disease. It is not always an easy assignment, and when it is done incorrectly or without needed gusto it falls short of the desired outcome. But when a man uses all of the tools available to him in a faithful and aggressive manner, the results can be dramatic and prompt. It is estimated that about 80% of men with Peyronie’s disease who follow a large plan according to the outline provided on the PDI website, see from moderate to great success in reduction of penile curvature and elimination of the Peyronie’s plaque material.
Even though the medical profession says it can’t be done – it happens anyway because the body knows how to heal itself. Using the PDI concepts, you will be able to assist and stimulate that natural healing response that some people call a Peyronie’s cure.
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.
Treatment for Peyronie’s Disease with Alternative Medicine
Peyronie’s Disease Treatment is simple with Alternative Medicine
All Peyronie’s disease treatment is surrounded by controversy. Every drug and surgical treatment for Peyronie’s disease is unproven, to say nothing of the Alternative Medicine treatments proposed by PDI.
No one can say which is the best treatment for Peyronie’s disease at this time, because only prescription medication is researched by the drug industry. Peyronie’s medication and surgery are the only forms of treatment for Peyronie’s disease that the pharmaceutical companies seriously investigate; no other Peyronie’s treatments are even considered. With no economic motivation Alternative Medicine ideas are ignored.
The Peyronie’s Disease Institute offers a way for the average man to apply concepts and have personal control over a form of new treatment for Peyronie’s disease, using Alternative Medicine. Peyronie’s natural treatment will never be considered by the pharmaceutical and hospital industries, and these business interests will never endorse home treatment for Peyronie’s disease for obvious economic reasons.
The PDI website recommends aggressive use of multiple Peyronie’s disease natural treatment in the acute and chronic stages. The purpose of this intense treatment for Peyronie’s disease is to increase and support the maximum healing potential of the body. In this way each man is given the best possible opportunity to repair and regenerate the damaged penile tissue to the best of his ability.
“Proof” of Peyronie’s Disease Treatment
In modern society drugs and medical technology with the greatest profit potential are researched most and are pushed hardest into the marketplace. Even though a particular treatment for Peyronie’s disease might help people, unless there is strong economic motivation to find “proof” that it works. Low profit therapies (vitamins, enzymes, homeopathy) are generally ignored by the medical establishment for reason of simple economics. Simple remedies are labeled “unproven” not necessarily because they do not work, but simply because no one wants to spend the time, effort and money to scientifically prove their effectiveness. A good home treatment for Peyronie’s disease can stay untested (ignored actually), and therefore remain “unproven”.
New Treatment for Peyronie’s Disease
Our theories for using aggressive and multiple Peyronie’s treatments are not yet proven. That proof is probably a long way off, since PDI cannot underwrite PD research the way a large university or billion dollar company can. PDI is not against surgery or drugs in cases that have been non-responsive to prolonged aggressive use of its new treatment for Peyronie’s disease. Too many men rush into Peyronie’s surgery believing that is an easy and sure solution to a big problem.
Natural Peyronie’s disease treatment theory is that the potential benefits of these subtle natural therapies are enhanced and multiplied by simply using several alternative therapies at the same time. We strongly suggest that abundant benefits are available to any man who needs treatment for Peyronie’s disease by using what is known and what is available – even if it is not perfect – rather than passively behave like a Peyronie’s victim.
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