Today I am officially 3 years postop.
Cause of ED: Veinous Leakage. Could still achieve an erection using Trimix at time of implant. The problem was that veinous leakage prevented me from keeping an erection for more than about :10 minutes.
Titan. 22 cm. No RTE. Penoscrotal. Dr. Clavell. Satisfaction level: Highly satisfied!
It seems like a dream almost. 3 years ago I was separated from my then wife, a rather cruel lady who weaponized my ED to both humiliate me directly and to give her cover for the affairs she would go on to have. Fast forward: I live on coastal Thailand with my 35 year old Cambodian wife (yes, I married her). I'm retired, happy, and having the best sex of my life almost daily.
My head is in a much different place now than the time i wrote the following:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20843&hilit=it%27s+showtime
I wrote about my recovery real time, and so I won't elaborate much on those early weeks. I posted about my recovery almost daily. (Not much else going on that month. Home alone with a new bionic dick, partially inflated. Wahoo). On this thread, I think i'll break it up into easily (hopefully) digestible segments of the takeaways from these past 3 years, so I'll try to keep it short each post. I'll try to cover a few topics in coming days on this new thread, without creating any new threads. What comes to mind here initially is:
GIRTH: I was a bit freaked out for the first almost-year because as I cycled I felt my dick was much more oval than the solidly round member it was in days past. I called it "The surfboard". Kind of a flat appearance on top and bottom. The width was just fine for my lady, so she said, but I could not help but feel she was being a bit charitable. The surfboard was not a welcome change. Good news! It resolved completely. And, though it took almost a full year, it eventually grew larger in girth than before. Girth Stats? i don't know. i've lived with my dick for 66 years. I just know the lay of the land. Bigger girth.
And hard as a railroad spike!
1. Engorgement of glans and spongiosum. (btw, just in case you're unaware, the spongiosum is the tissue around your penis, along the shaft, that engorges when aroused. As I well learned, pumping it up is only the starting point. I could pump it up anytime, but there's no way one gets that "purple helmet", "raging boner" with only the implant. Sexual arousal has to be there. Sensitivity has to be there. Blood flow has to be there (in the spongiosum). I lost a good bit of sensitivity in the early months, alarmingly so. What can you do? All i could do was wait.....and fortunately, that's all it took. Nerves heal. Takes time. Some longer than others.
What I've learned consistently both here on the forum and from my own experience is that if you could get glans engorgement prior to the implant, you should continue to get it after the implant. BUT (!)....it takes time. This happened slowly for me and i confess to some anxiety about this in early days.
SENSITIVITY. Full disclosure: I probably have lost a bit of sensitivity overall. This translates into penetrative sexual encounters in which i can go extended periods of active humping, sometimes for :45 minutes to a full hour. This has changed the sexual experience for me, in a not unpleasant way. Fact is, I STILL do orgasm. Almost 100% of the time now. These long sessions are much different than the frenzied bunny-humping of my youth. Sex stil feels great, but i think these extended sessions, sometimes frenzied, sometimes relaxed, serve to enhance intimacy. Which i value.
So, the sexual experience is different. That doesn't mean inferior, just different. I wonder sometimes if this slow-down is age related. I'm a very fit 66 year old who is either in the gym, on his bike, or at the driving range almost daily. On TRT (doctors supervision) for years. But despite all that, you know, I'm just not as "fangs out" horny as I used to be. This is not a complaint, just an observation. The sex we do have now is awesome....just takes longer.
Takes longer....but my erection DOES NOT FAIL! My lady loves this aspect and even brags to her friends about my staying power (she doesn't reveal the part about being bionic). Bascially what i'm saying is she likes to get fucked for a good long time. Never taps out, and has commented many times on how much she enjoys a long fuck-session.
I had numbness on the lower shaft and balls for months. I think it was probably fully healed with all the sensitivity that would return happening by about month 7 or 8. At that point I could pump it up hard, put it in, and not be sore anymore from even the most vigorous sex.
Now here's something I found fascinating.....
I cycled aggressively. Never missed a day. I considered it physical therapy (which tends to hurt a bit) and definitely not playtime. This, over time, paid off in a big way. I got all my length back and that increased girth i mentioned. But the magic happened at almost exactly 1 year. Maybe a year and a half, but one time i was pumping it up for sex. When fucking my lady (and me) like it as hard as possible. (I know some of you guys like to back it off a notch or too. Cool).
But on this occasion i was pumping and then became immediately alarmed when THE BULB FLATTENED!
Panic almost took over as i suspected that I'd sprung a leak! But....my dick was as hard as it could possibly get and i had that full girthy appearance. It was NOT going down. The erection remained....and this particular experience is now repeated each and every time we have sex. I pump until the bulb flattens. The best i can figure is that Dr. Clavell knew PRECISELY how much fluid to put in the reservoir without exceeding capacity of my penile anatomy. At that level there is complete fullness of the shaft. I think the doctor knew that for me to keep trying to cycle beyond that might be to risk erosion below the glans. That is my speculation anyway. Ultimately, I consider this aspect a testament to the surgeon's expertise.
That's it for now, In a few days I want to write about another phenomena i dealt with. That is, the early days of feeling that "my mind is not connected to my dick" anymore. This unsettled me a bit, but in the end, this resolved too. I'll write more on that topic later.
And finally, Happy New Year Bionic Brethren!
