edjohn wrote:
I am starting to theorize that it takes 6 months for the implant material itself to relax and these later gains are really just because the implant is able to continue the slow march towards bursting (provided your surgeon gave you enough extra fluid).
I was insane about my pre-op pumping (reaching +1” in the VED the night prior) and was at my full natural length right after surgery. I hope this means I stand to gain but even if not, it is clear that good vacuum training and a good surgeon can keep you from taking a loss.
I think the biggest misconception is that the implant is expanding. It’s not, at least not length wise. It’s the tunica that is expanding to allow the implant to reach its fully extended length.
I have my suspicions about whether VED use prior to implant is actually expanding the “max size” your implant can reach, or if it’s just pre-stretching the tunica and allowing you to reach max size quicker than you would without having used it. There is no way to know for sure, so you might as well use it prior. My suspicions about you is that your VED use left you with a nice pliable tunica, and as a result you quickly reached its max size. For guys that don’t have that pliable tunica from the beginning, they stand to gain much more in length now that they are cycling. You essentially did your cycling beforehand.
Like I said above: whether you stand to gain is largely a function of how big your implant is, and what your size was prior to implant. Those are the two limitations on your gains. If you are currently at between .66 to .75 of your implant length, and are at your natural length prior to implant, odds are low you can grow much more than where you are now. But perhaps a little.
I don't measure that often, so gains in length and girth were recorded in spurts. That said, I feel like the most significant recent change has been the near absence of pain when cycling. Up until the past month or two, cycling always created pain caused by the implant pressing against tissue. And I believe increases in length and girth happened because of the implant pressing the tissue to expand. Now when I cycle there's almost no pain, and whatever slight pain there is goes away in a few minutes, followed by more mini-pumps, but no more pain. I interpret this as the CX, a "Tunica-Independent Implant", reaching its maximum inflated length and girth. In addition to the info Leto provided above, forum member sambalamba offered a good description of tunica dependence/independence in his thread below.