Greetings from the Beta Group and More on Kenalog

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Written by Roxane at 07 Feb 2000 20:25:57:

Hi Robin,
"The Beta Group" - I like it (perhaps because I never had a nickname in High School).
Glad to see you on here again. I hope you don't mind me monopolizing your forum in your absence. I know from what you've written me that you understand somewhat my motivation, so I don't think you'll hold it against me. I did want to say though, that I am not promoting steroid cream to adult males in order to find out more about it before my son may need to use it again, but because I have seen it work and I genuinely want to help men who have phimosis and have not found stretching any help.
I also want to say that I'm sorry if I have come across as a anti-circ extremist.
I admit, I do lean that way, but the last thing I want to do is turn this forum into another circ./anti-circ. debating place. I have great respect for what you've started and have benefitted a great deal from the men on here who have been kind enough to share their thoughts with me.
About the Kenalog ( you're right it does sound like a breakfast cereal), I'm no chemist either, but I imagine it's a synthetic hormone like cortisone (probably a cortisone derivative) and I believe it works on mouth ulcers and phimosis because it thins out the skin just enough to have the desired effect. There was no stretching required when I used it on my son. You could literally see the opening widen by the day.
Only after we had used it for about a week and the hole had opened up quite a bit did we attempt retraction. I believe that if we had used the cream for another week as prescribed, before attempting this, the paraphimosis would never have occurred.
The 90% success rate I quoted comes from various sites I've found on the Web, on this topic, during the 5 or more years I have been researching this.
The problem with these studies though is that they are all done with young boys, most of whom probably did not have true phimosis, but a tightness of the foreskin that they probably would have outgrown.
Also none of them mentions Kenalog (Triacinolone Acetonide .1% - corticosteroid, anti-inflammmatory, anti-pruritic cream), only betamethasone. Kelanog is what we were prescribed and found to be very effective. This is what we will probably use again when my son is older. After all, if it's safe enough to put in your mouth for ulcers, putting it elsewhere shouldn't be a concern.
Hopefully, my son's problem will resolve itself with time, but if it doesn't, he
will have the choice of circumcission or the cream. I'm just very glad that I
questioned the doctors and sought out another method of treatment, so that he still has this choice.
Your right, It is not soley the medical profession's fault that so little is known about this. It is largely due to reluctance to talk about such things.
That's what's so great about this forum. It allows such candor and is so far reaching.
I just hope that the men on this group don't feel I have been "pestering" them with my info on Kenalog or that I'm some kind of an oddball because I take such an interest in this subject. It's just that I was so relieved when I found my son an alternative to circumcission and I can't help but feel that there must be others who would also be glad for it.
Roxane