[ ARC forum 2 ]

Re: Synechotomy (Opinion, cont'd)

Written by Charles II at 29 Dec 2003 01:27:10:

As an answer to: Re: Synechotomy (Opinion) written by Ralesk at 28 Dec 2003 20:45:31:

I said> Where I come into disagreement with the treatment is in the very last diagram (#17), where the doctor pulls the retracted foreskin back down again to completely cover the penis head. What reasoning is there for that? After the first 16 diagrams, he was right at the finish line, then he turned around and undid it all.
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You said> No. Why it could be wrong to pull the skin over right after this in most cases totally unnecessary treatment, is that the foreskin and the glans might fuse together at points where damage was done (skin or mucosal surface broken). We know skin tags and skin bridges on people circumcised as infants, don't we?
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I say> You just made my point. IF any damage was done, a tendency for the skins to fuse back together would be -best- served by bringing them back into contact with eachother. Common sense says to leave the foreskin retracted, at least until any necessary healing of such now separated surfaces is complete, if not permanently.
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You went on> Having the glans covered, is otherwise a pretty normal and good idea. The times it should not be so, are the times of sex and masturbation --- and if you want to be really picky, that of hygiene.
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I reply> That would be a separate issue and of course one where both the author of this post and I disagree. As "why all boys must be checked" on this web site shows, foreskin retraction for reasons of hygiene alone is hardly "picky" but rather an appallingly overlooked and neglected essential element in early penis health.
As for skin tags or bridges on guys cut as infants, examination of generations of RIC males shows they are rare. Since the procedure being discussed in this post is commonly practiced as a prerequisite to circumcision, as well as for the purposes intended by Straffon, the procedure and the age at which he advocates it seems good practice to me.
So I disagree that the procedure is almost always unnecessary. The -only- times it would -not- be necessary would be in cases of full retractability at or soon after birth, or in cases of auto-circumcision. While a South Korean web site discussing the topic denies that auto-circumcision exists, the sentence immediately preceeding their erroneous statement uses the medical term aposthia to describe it. Some people are so blind they can't even see that their own arguments already crashed and burned before the debate started.


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