My 6 year old may now require circumcision! Help! - Page 4

tommy124 · 07-16-2008, 05:00 PM

floncita,
if you are looking for a doctor who will not insist that surgery is necessary, it might be wise get an impartial opinion. someone whose belief system includes surgery may or may not be impartial. their neutrality is for you to decide. another way is to ask the doctor if he or she is foreskin-friendly. there are many doctors, regardless of their background, who are foreskin-friendly.
you might want to search on the Oster study in Denmark. it can give you a clearer picture of when boys are expected to be able to retract.
another very good site to check out is the sticky at the top of the Men's Health forum in Healthboards, entitled Stretching to Fix Tight Foreskin (Phimosis).
there are many alternatives available to you, which are good to consider. whichever way you decide, you will probably want to find the one which is the most gentle and effective.

irisrose · 08-17-2008, 07:30 PM

Before anyone else runs out and has their elementary aged boys circumcised, please talk to your urologist or doctor about using betamethasone cream.

My son has phimosis and I used betamethasone cream and he had a fully retractable foreskin. We started to see results within days. By 2 weeks, the foreskin could be retracted fully exposing the glans. Before this the whole at the tip of his penis was so tiny you couldn't see the glans at all.

Because circumcision has been the norm for decades here, most doctors and urologists in the US have no idea how to treat phimosis. They will recommend circumcision. If you want information on phimosis, you have to look to other countries where circumcision is not routine. There you will find the statistics that say it can take up to puberty for the foreskin to loosen. And even if it doesn't, there are ways of rectifying it w/o circumcising.

tommy124 · 08-18-2008, 01:10 PM

thank you so much for posting, irisrose!
your message has the potential for helping many boys avoid problems and pain.

ericanicole25 · 08-18-2008, 01:43 PM

I asked more than 1 doctor about the different things that were recommended to me on this board. Unfortunately, my son's foreskin opening was located on the underside of his penis, not near the tip where it usually is (Hypospadias). The urologist told us that we could try some different things, but that many of the other options would not work because of the location of the opening.

Instead of putting my son through months of trying to use different creams and exercises to stretch his foreskin, only to end up having to be circumcised later, I decided to have him circumcised. He was fine with it then and is extremely happy with it now because he is no longer in pain when he gets even the slightest erection, nor does he have to worry about getting another infection.

Circumcision is definitely not the best option for all boys with tight foreskin, but can end up being the only option for some.

It was the most difficult decision I have ever made.

Open mindedness is key in a world with so many different opinions...

tommy124 · 08-19-2008, 01:07 PM

EricaNicole, things are different in your country. Doctors are more cautious, and are less likely to offer circumcision as the first line of defense. We can see your struggle, and your soul searching, so I don't believe the comment was aimed at you, though it might have felt that way. Your son's hypospadias makes his situation different, anyway.
In my own experience, my son had a minor infection, at age 3. They prescribed antibiotics, which cured the problem, but they diagnosed him with phimosis. It is common knowledge that it is impossible to diagnose true phimosis in someone so young now, but it wasn't then.
We took him to three doctors, and three advised circumcision. We had him circumcised.
Now, most doctors know that it is normal not to be able to retract at three. Down here, it is still a common knee jerk reaction, for both the parents to want to circumcise, and for the doctors to advise it, without looking into gentler alternatives.
Don't second guess yourself. I did enough of that. You are a good mother. You weighed the alternatives, and with the information at hand, made the best choice for your child. Who could ask for more from you?