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Re: Question for Robin about my 11 month old son....

Written by Marnie at 23 Mar 2000 17:24:30:

As an answer to: Re: Question for Robin about my 11 month old son.... written by Robert Knight at 22 Mar 2000 23:59:22:

Robert,

I appreciate your candor, and you are absolutely right -- I need to do something about this problem and stop whining. It's the "do something" issue I am stuck on. For the past few weeks I have been researching this issue and I have been told many different things by many different self-proclaimed experts. I have learned that pulling skin bridges apart can cause scarring and can result in re-adhesions that may prove to be more serious than the original problem. As a matter of fact, some people who strongly advised against manual separation went so far as to imply that doing so would be akin to abuse -- although many of these same people believe that circs are abusive, too.

Anyway, it was those conversations that led me to this steriod cream path. And I thought this forum may be a good place to research it.

In my defense, I believe that I, as a mom, owe it to my son to research all of my options prior to taking action. But you are correct in implying that I do need to leave my emotional state out of it when asking for advice.

Thank you for your response.
--Marnie

>Marnie, I realize you sent this question to Robin, not me, but inasmuch as it's on the open forum I'm going to take the opportunity to say a couple of things, like them or not. To begin with, it's long past the time for feeling awful about what you did to your baby, if there ever was such a time. You did what you did because at the time you must have felt it was in his best interests (or maybe in accordance with his father's wishes, which his father felt were in his best interests), and if the damned skin bridges hadn't developed the whole episode would be forgotten by now. At this point, instead of feeling awful, it is up to you to decide where to go with the problem from here, to end it. What is needed, looking at things from my corner (and, hopefully, from the child's point of view), is to get rid of the skin bridges (not hope they'll go away or hope you can get rid of them with an ointment), let the kid heal up, (which will take an amazingly short time) and FORGET THE WHOLE THING! I mean, FORGET IT! (Not continue to discuss it and mourn over it for the rest of time. Some of us [90 million Ameericans] are circumcised and some are not, but very few of us make a lifelong hobby of obsessing over it.) This (getting rid of the bridges quickly)is in your baby's interests and in yours in the short and long run. You could continue to wring your hands, cry and moan, and do nothing until he's 20 years old. This would be a cruelly stupid way to go. It would not make him (or you!) a happier or healthier person. What you can do now (dare I say must do now?), and should if your interest is truly in helping the boy and not in moping about in the slough of despond, is to go to a physician you can trust, and GET THE PROBLEM TAKEN CARE OF, FINISHED. DO IT!!!
>Best wishes, sincerely, Robert Knight.
>
> question in the other forum and was helped tremendously by other posters, but I have a question that I thought you could answer since you seem so very knowledgable on the subject. My son was circ'd and now has adhesions (skin bridges?)-- one or the other. Anyway, someone on another site recommended a steroid cream to break the adhesions, while another person on the same site argued that the steroid cream would not work since my son has "circumcised" adhesions, versus "natural" ones. Do you know what the difference is? Is it true that his "circumcised" adhesions will not break on their own the way "natural" adhesions do?
>>Any information you may have on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm so very worried about my son and feel absolutely awful that I've inflicted this condition on him.
>>Thank you in advance for you help.
>>--Marnie


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