[ ARC forum 2 ]
Written by Jim at 11 Jul 2002 15:49:00: Your doctor doesn't know much or is lying to you
As an answer to: Preputioplasty written by Mick at 11 Jul 2002 03:11:31:
Regarding his statement about stretching damaging skin, he is quite uninformed about the way in which the body grows. Are you quite sure this was a guy who graduated from medical school? I suspect that the truth is that he really does know the truth, but in order to force you into another surgery, by which he makes his living, he is telling this little fib.
Think about how fat people get as big as they do. As their bodies continue to put on the fat, the skin expands (stretches). Does that sound like damage to the skin to you?
What about babies who grow from seven pounds to two hundred pounds in a matter of seventeen or eighteen years? Do you see damage on their skin from all of that stretching?
The skin of the body has the ability to expand by creating new cells within the gaps created by the stretching. When skin is put under tension, it will automatically grow new cells every time. Have you ever heard of a fat person exploding because the skin would not stretch any more? Of course not.
Plastic surgeons specializing in helping burn victims utilize skin expansion techniques regularly to create new skin to be used for grafts. By using skin from the victim, they prevent the rejection that would happen from using donor tissue. Inflation of balloons below the surface causes the skin to expand. As it expands, the inflation is increased, causing more growth.
Medical doctors in China have also used balloons to stretch the foreskins of youths. They insert the balloon into the preputial opening and inflate it. The skin expands. Simple and effective.
Anyone who is trying to tell you that stretching is damaging or that it doesn't work is either not playing with a full deck of cards, or is flat out lying to you.