Sharing my recent experience with circumcision due to balinitis

I had circumcision due to recurring balanitis, a week and a half ago. My balinitis went on for years - I’m 60 … I had no clue what was going on and I foolishly just kept trying anti-fungal and hydrocortisone and Vaseline without any real plan. What happened after a while is that the foreskin started to adhere to the glans and it also got so tight and painful that I could no longer retract it.

So: the circumcision. I got registered at the hospital and changed into the surgery gown, and then walked into the operating room. I laid down on the warmed bed and after a short chat with the anesthesiologist and the surgeon I was given an IV and they injected the drugs… it took around 30 seconds and I was gone and in what felt like a few seconds later I woke up in the recovery room. My penis was swaddled in gauze but it was numb and remained numb for hours afterward. The gauze fell off by the end of the day. My penis was very swollen and bruised and I could tell that I must have had a catheter as it felt weird when I peed (sitting down of course). It felt like my urethra was tight. I was careful to place a non-adhering wound dressing in my underpants to avoid it sticking to the cloth. This is very important! Get the bigger pads if you can. Most are 3x4” but larger is better.

I will confess that the head of my penis looked like absolute hell, and it remained so for days. I think it was a combination of the gunk that comes out after and incision and then especially that there must have been a thin layer from the inside of my foreskin that had been adhered to the glans that stayed behind. So there were white dead tissue looking areas… like I said it was a heck of a gruesome looking thing. For the first few days I slathered it with an antibiotic cream containing Lidocaine as it was very sensitive and tender. After 3-4 days I took a shower and just let the water rinse it. I started showering every day and ever so tenderly tried wiping the glands and the incision line with my fingers - no soap - and I could feel material washing away. The incision line started to look a little more orderly, and bits of the adhesion tissue seemed to be washing away. I can only assume that the glans is regenerating a new layer of cells and that will help that old tissue to release and wash off. Here we are a week and a half later and it’s starting to look and feel much better.

I can still feel that it’s odd to not have the protection of a foreskin between my penis and my underwear but the glans seems to be “toughening up” or whatever… the uncomfortable sensitivity is diminishing. Overall my penis feels a lot better than it has for years, despite the remaining stitches and ongoing recovery. I think the “strangulation” of my foreskin due to the balinitis was worse than I thought. Recovery is taking longer than I foolishly anticipated… give yourself at least a week off work if you can. I hope that in another week it will all be completely normal looking and feeling. Remember that I had a very severe case of balinitis that I left untreated far longer than I should have, and I’m recovering perfectly well. As someone else said: Trust the process but let healing take its time.