Tension measurements

[DougAnd]

We pull a tape on a board, mark and cut, right? Ten guys do it right ten guys make the same mark. That is what we are used to doing. Then someone tells you to pull on your flaccid penis and tape it. Totally different. Tension measurement. Ten guys do that you get ten different measurements. Too many variables. It's even worse for the surgeon. The type of measurement they use is the least accurate of all. It involves 2 different arbitrary tension measurements on each side of your penis. As if that were not bad enough then they need to fudge them to the nearest 1/2 cm.
So imagine someone telling you to measure a stretched rubber band in 2 halves. But there are no instructions as to how hard you should pull. The directions say "not too hard and not too soft". Then you have to round it to the nearest 1/5th inch.
If you were building a house using this method your walls would all be crooked, your chairs would wobble your furniture, slant.
If we were heart patients with that kind of shoddy surgery we would all be dead.
Surgeons should be required to put your penis in traction to a predetermined length and then measure using a predetermined tension and an EXACT MEASUREMENT. Then you would have an acceptable predetermined outcome each any every time.

[LeRoastBeef]

Hi Doug,

I understand and appreciate your point, however, surgeons probably do get very good at knowing just how hard to push from experience.

Not too hard to push into the distal tip and perforate the glans with an oversized implant, but hard enough that you're not left short.

I get your point though. I guess the must be some reason why there is not a more scientific, reliable less unambiguous way of doing it.

[Larry10625]

We pull a tape on a board, mark and cut, right? Ten guys do it right ten guys make the same mark. That is what we are used to doing. Then someone tells you to pull on your flaccid penis and tape it. Totally different. Tension measurement. Ten guys do that you get ten different measurements. Too many variables. It's even worse for the surgeon. The type of measurement they use is the least accurate of all. It involves 2 different arbitrary tension measurements on each side of your penis. As if that were not bad enough then they need to fudge them to the nearest 1/2 cm.
So imagine someone telling you to measure a stretched rubber band in 2 halves. But there are no instructions as to how hard you should pull. The directions say "not too hard and not too soft". Then you have to round it to the nearest 1/5th inch.
If you were building a house using this method your walls would all be crooked, your chairs would wobble your furniture, slant.
If we were heart patients with that kind of shoddy surgery we would all be dead.
Surgeons should be required to put your penis in traction to a predetermined length and then measure using a predetermined tension and an EXACT MEASUREMENT. Then you would have an acceptable predetermined outcome each any every time.

Dr's Brock, Perito and Kramer all told me that the ONLY measurement they trust is the one they get during surgery, inserting the measuring rod. The stretch test is used to give the patient a rough idea of what they will have on completion of the surgery. This is why they can't estimate the use of RTE's because, they need to measure accurately in the two areas.

Larry

[tomas1]

I think my surgeon/uro followed that regimen except he never did try to give me an approximation beforehand.
He told me he would induce an erection during surgery and go with it.
Whatever and however he did it, it worked perfectly.
I'm not happy ending up with the CX and not the LGX.
I doubt he'd listen to me if I told him I know so many guys in 18 and 21cm sizes who are happy with the LGX.
Maybe I'll get a bit more girth with the CX eventually.

[Lost Sheep]

We pull a tape on a board, mark and cut, right? Ten guys do it right ten guys make the same mark. That is what we are used to doing. Then someone tells you to pull on your flaccid penis and tape it. Totally different. Tension measurement. Ten guys do that you get ten different measurements. Too many variables. It's even worse for the surgeon. The type of measurement they use is the least accurate of all. It involves 2 different arbitrary tension measurements on each side of your penis. As if that were not bad enough then they need to fudge them to the nearest 1/2 cm.
So imagine someone telling you to measure a stretched rubber band in 2 halves. But there are no instructions as to how hard you should pull. The directions say "not too hard and not too soft". Then you have to round it to the nearest 1/5th inch.
If you were building a house using this method your walls would all be crooked, your chairs would wobble your furniture, slant.
If we were heart patients with that kind of shoddy surgery we would all be dead.
Surgeons should be required to put your penis in traction to a predetermined length and then measure using a predetermined tension and an EXACT MEASUREMENT. Then you would have an acceptable predetermined outcome each any every time.

In the videos I have seen of the implant surgery, the surgeon inserts a measuring tool and pushes deep into the crus until he hits bottom (essentially your pelvic bone) and notes the length markings on the tool, distance from the incision to the crus. Then he inserts the tool distally and notes the distance from the same place on the incision to the (interior) distal tip of the corpus cavernosum in the glans of your penis. When he or she) makes this measurement the cavernosum (tunica albuginea) stretches much like the fubber band in your analogy. But (also like a rubber band analogy) the tunica reaches a limit where stretching stops. In the videos I have seen, this limit is clear and easily determined. The too appears to be being rammed up into the cavernosum/tunica with substantial force and stops rather abruptly, and repeating the movement several times, the stopping point is always the same.

Insert, push stretch forcefully, stop abruptly. Over an over again with the same stopping point.

This indicates to me that the subjectivity you assume for the ten guys (surgeons, I presume, who are making the measurement during the surgery, not a pre-op stretch test) is not subjective at all. That abrupt stopping point seems to me to be pretty objective and not subject to variations between suregeons, as long as they follow good standards of care operating procedures.

[DougAnd]

Very good discussion. Lots of useful information.
What Lost Sheep is describing is called max stretch measurement. I asked my surgeon to do that several times and he refused. There is no standard. Each surgeon does what he/she feels is most comfortable. Worst yet what you see in the films is an illusion. Except for Eid, Kramer and one guy in the Kissimmee Orlando area (obviously there are many more that I don't know of) surgeons do not cut rts and rtes to fit the patient. So what you see on the video is not what they do. In other words they push hard downward and call out the measurement but not what they actually see they round it usually shorter to the nearest 1/5" (1/2 cm). Then they do a stretch inside of your penis up to the glans whatever feels comfortable for them and round that one usually shorter to the nearest 1/2 cm. The 2 shortened numbers are then added together and that is the size of your prosthesis. For Larry's sake I repeat: that just because these yo yos choose not to measure inside and out simultaneously does not make it right. If you put the penis in traction before during and after surgery EVERYONE will know exactly what length the penis will be before during and after surgery. No secrets there, no smoke and mirrors. And no more arbitrary choices by uninformed idiots. We need Federal laws mandating just that to protect our rights that have been unjustly taken away.