Here are the highlights, USA Today style:
1. Bottom line IMHO is if you're having success with any ED treatement, stick with it as long as it works, and only when you've tried all alternatives and nothing else is working should you seek penis implant surgery. It is an invasive, permanent solution to ED that has some advantages but also several disadvantages.
2. Pros: You can have an erection, such as it is, whenever you want one. You don't need to worry about how many pills/injections you have left, especially while traveling. You don't have to worry about whether you will get an erection at the critical time, and you don't have to worry about how long you will stay hard.
3. Cons: There is a lot of pain post-surgery, some of which can last up to a year (Don't just watch the tesimonials on YouTube like I did, look up the post-operative instructions from different medical providers, which tell you what to expect for real). The head of your penis will no longer swell when you're excited like it used to, and a certain condition, "floppy glans syndrome", while not common requires additional surgery to correct. Although the implants get hard, the surrounding flesh is kind of loose, so the normal feeling of friction in intercourse is a little lessened. The feeling of the erection, generally, is somewhat different than what you're used to; you can also feel the pump and tubing with your hand quite readily. The pump itself is a little difficult to operate, and for at least the first few weeks your scrotum will hurt from the compression of your fingers against the pump inside it. The urologist said that they can make the penis somewhat larger depending on how much scar tissue is present, but since I'd had a mild case of Peyronie's Disease with some scarring there was has been some shortening, which is the chief complaint of patients who were less than completely satisfied, me included. Last but not least, there is some risk of infection, which also happened to me.
The boring details are:
I started with a new (to me)urologist, asked him about penis implants since my Super Bi-mix injections worked but not as well as they used to. and I knew that eventually they would not work at all . He said I was a good candidate for implants because I am taking Xarelto for A-fib, and the anti-coagulant drugs tend to cause excess bleeding in the penis when the ED injections are used. After some more consultation we set a date that was about 6 weeks out for the surgery.
Surgery was under general anaesthesia, so I felt like crap when I awoke. They kept me in the hospital overnight as a precaution due to my A-fib, and for that night and the next day I felt pretty good, not knowing that they had chocked my nether regions full with painkillers. My johnson and balls were cradled in some sort of cushioned gauze pocket taped to my abdomen, and a Foley catheter had been inserted into my urethra. By the time I was released, I had three swollen balls: the pump and fluid reservoir felt like a third ball. The doc tried to remove the cradle, but the gorilla tape they'd used hurt so bad when he pulled on it that it brought tears to my eyes. I was later able to take it off after soaking in the shower the next day. I could barely sit down on the ride home, and though they gave me a week's worth of Tramadol I ached eontinually for a week straight. Even though the pain began to subside on the 7th day, my balls remained swollen for quite some time afterward.
The night before my 3-week follow-up doctor visit I developed a fever and shivered violently for almost 2 hours straight. Turns out I had a Urinary Tract Infection, for which they gave me Levaquin, a badass antibiotic with which you can have no alcohol, grapefruit, or several other things, including sunlight. After that went away, my balls and weenie were all still very tender, so I was unable to use or practice with the device. When I finally could do so, operating the pump by squeezing the bulb through the scrotum has made it feel bruised and a little sore. I will say that finally, 8 weeks later, I had sex with my girlfriend and though awkward and different-feeling, it was in the end quite satisfying. Maybe with my continued breaking-in of the pump and toughening of my scrotum it will be even better. We'll see.
Update: It's been seven months since the surgery and the implants are functioning quite well, although as I said there has been some shortening of the penis and it does not have the girth it once had. I read two interesting articles among a host of dull ones about that: One said that the use of an ED medication like Viagra or Cialis would induce some swelling of the glans and maybe improve girth somewhat until the medication wears off-- I've noticed that when I get really excited, the ridge on on the underside of my cock actually swells a bit, so the drugs might indeed help. I'm thining of re-ordering Rugiet, which is Viagra combined with a nother drug, Apomorphine, that really helps you get in the mood...
Another article was a case study of a guy whose implants for some reason needed replacing. He used a vacuum assist device (a penis pump) regularly while waiting for the replacement surgery. Supposedly it increased the size of his corpora cavernosa enought that the urologist was able to insert a larger set of implants than before, so maybe that's something you could look forward to if things go wrong the first time.
To sum it all up, the surgery is painful and although most of it goes away in a few days there is still some tenderness here after 7 months. I and a lot of men find that with the implants the penis is somewhat shorter and a little thinnner than it was before the surgery. But on the other hand, sex with the implants works quite well: My girlfriend seems to genuinely enjoy it, anyway! There is something to be said for not having that "Will it work or not?" anxiety that began with ED and continued through all the times I used medications and then with the injections, so now I do have a certain degree of confidence that I can be hard whenever I need to be.
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