I've found a lot of good advice on this forum over the years so I thought I would give an overview of my situation and what I went through just in case it's helpful to other people. I have no intention of wading into a pro/anti-circumcision argument. If we must get into it I think circumcising infants is completely wrong, but obviously there are cases where for some medical reason it's justified. I don't think my story gives much backing for either side of that argument as there are pros and cons in what I went through.
To cut a long story short (no pun intended), I gave up and got circumcised about a year ago. I had a retractable foreskin as a teenager, but it was always tight. I had no idea how to stretch it properly as a 15 year old so I decided to macho my way out of it by just retracting the foreskin when flaccid and having epic masturbation sessions despite the stinging sensation I got from an erection when retracted. It used to hurt for days afterwards. It didn't get any less tight, in fact it just got tighter. I started to notice scar tissue around the edge of the foreskin. I know some people claim that can't happen. I don't buy that at all. It's exactly what happened to me - there was no yeast infection, just flat out injured skin from my moronic attempts to push through the pain barrier. This is exactly the kind of thing silly kids do when they haven't had proper information, so if you're a 15 year old kid trying to do what I did, stop now and learn how to stretch it properly.
So one day I found I couldn't retract the foreskin at all even when flaccid. I was about 18. I spent the next 12 years trying to address the problem. I purchased a glansie, the balloon device that was popular at one stage (that I've forgotten the name of), flesh tunnels, I had a prescription for betamethasone. As is the way with these things, sometimes it seemed like a little progress was being made, then I took a step back. I'd be lying if I said I spent every day of these 12 years focusing on this problem, but I gave it a pretty massive effort in my opinion. At a certain point I resigned myself to the idea that it wasn't going to work: i.e. it might work for some people, but not for me.
I didn't have sex during this time. This wasn't down to the phimosis specifically, but it didn't help. For all that we can teach people to have confidence, it just isn't very easy to know that if you're going to get intimate with a girl you're going to have to sit them down and explain phimosis to them. It might work if you're Brad Pitt. If you're on the edge of acceptability it's a different story. I was pretty shy to begin with and on the few occasions I got somewhere with a girl it was like there was a barrier preventing me from going any further. Yep, that shouldn't be the case and I should have grown some balls, but I didn't.
Towards the end, I started to get frequent discharge from under my foreskin, despite attempts to wash it properly. It felt a little raw and tender underneath the skin and using yeast infection treatments didn't seem to make it go away. It was this (rather than concerns about having sex) that finally took me to the doctor's office. At that point I was just done. It's one thing to frustratingly try and cure a cosmetic problem. It's another to have an actual medical condition that you seem incapable of treating linked to phimosis. I was just done at this point and forced myself to go through with it.
I had the operation done under local anaesthetic. If anyone does get this done (I'm not saying they should) then I would say local is better. I say that because general can cause a lot of side effects and really this wasn't a painful experience. I was lying on my back and couldn't feel anything down there (so much so that moments before the surgeon said it was finished I still wasn't sure if he'd even started the operation as I hadn't felt anything). Surgery can go wrong, but for me the discomfort of doing this was pretty low on the agenda. It seemed about as easy and painless a process as it gets.
Post-operation was a different story. It looked a mess for weeks. The nightly erections were horrendous. It was a whole pile of stress that wasn't needed. I got through it but it definitely wasn't fun. It was tender when walking for maybe two months. I knew I was over it when I played a game of tennis two months after the operation date. Now this isn't even a consideration, I can't feel any sensitivity, it's just normal.
Has it helped my confidence? Well I did have sex with someone about six months after the operation. I can't say that was all on the circumcision. I was probably just more attractive/confident as a 30 year old than I had been in my 20s and the circumstances were right. Do I regret the circumcision at this point? I'd say absolutely not, but I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. I think the message that is preached here (don't give up early and get it cut because the doctor says you should) is completely right. I gave up after 12 years of exhausting all possibilities and when it started to affect my life in more than a cosmetic way. It's a different situation entirely so I would say that any 18 year olds in my situation should definitely give it at least a few years to see if they have any progress.
Hopefully this helps someone who is just starting out on a similar path as I really wish I'd known more about the topic as that naive 15 year old kid I used to be.
Source: http://www.network54.com/Forum/244184/thread/1494250762/last-1495767126/Gave+up+and+got+circumcised+-+some+honest+reflections
Thank you for being honest!
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