[ ARC forum 2 ]
Written by glider at 27 Mar 2004 14:12:39: Re: phimosis v frenulum breve
As an answer to: phimosis v frenulum breve written by JD at 26 Mar 2004 15:55:00:
After puzzling for a while over what I considered to be my own mildly dysfunctional foreskin I came to pretty much the same conclusion as Matt: it wasn't that my frenulum was too short, it was more that the skin surrounding it wasn't long enough. This skin would pull tight before the skin on the opposite side had tightened much at all. I reckoned, however, that if I could make this relatively short skin get longer or at least more stretchable then I'd be able to get the full, even, all-the-way-round retraction I wanted.
I tried three main things:
As illustrated in the top image at foreskin.org: frenulum (Matt's reference), I used a four finger grip to pull the bottom lip of my foreskin out, stretching it lengthwise and width-wise. I did this in the shower, in bed, anywhere it was convenient, several times every day for two or three minutes a time.
When masturbating - using the standard hold-it-in-your-fist method - I would make sure I skinned back as far as I could, tilting my grip so as to give the skin surrounding my frenulum a really good stretch. I would pull back to the point of discomfort and then hold. I would also put the first and second fingers of my other hand on either side of my frenulum, and would use them and my thumb to prevent my glans from rotating. This seemed to help focus the stretching forces on the area I wanted to stretch.
Finally, about once a day, I would use four fingers - two from each hand - to get a direct grip on my frenulum and pull.
Thinking about it, I think the last exercise was probably the least useful. The other two, though, seem to have encouraged the skin around my frenulum to loosen up to the extent that I can now stretch back to the point where the skin smoothes out just about evenly and completely all the way round.
________________In other words:
If Matt's description fits - as it did for me - the problem is that the skin on the frenular side of the penis isn't long enough - or isn't stretchy enough - compared to the skin on the opposite side. I reckon the length of the frenulum isn't really the issue here.
Having worked this out, I then began to wonder whether a frenuloplasty would actually help. If frenuloplasty simply removes the frenulum, then the remaining skin would still be too short, and it would still pull tight before the skin on the opposite side. No doubt my glans wouldn't pull out of line so much because, with the frenulum absent, there would be less leverage on it. All the same, the remaining skin would still need to be lengthened before full smooth-out retraction would be possible.
I concluded - possibly wrongly - that even after a frenuloplasty, I would still want to stretch this skin, but that with the frenulum absent - and it does seem to be a stubborn piece of skin - stretching might be easier, perhaps so easy that I wouldn't even notice I was doing it.
I reckoned, though, that if I was going to have to stretch this skin anyway I might as well try it on my own, and if this didn't work, and it was still bugging me, I could opt for a frenuloplasty later on.
Well, it worked - though it took a little over a year. Several sites say that the frenulum is difficult to stretch, e.g. Short Frenulum, on this Norm page. I think this is probably true, but that for some guys the solution will be to stretch the skin surrounding it instead.
Sorry for the long and none too clear post. These are pretty compelling questions though. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has had a frenuloplasty.