|
Overcoming The Difficult Effects of Peyronie's Disease
(05/04/2004) by Unknown
Men: Imagine you wake up one day, stroke your morning erection a few times, but pause to notice a new bump on the top of your penis. Since it doesn't hurt or interfere with your self-pleasuring, you finish up, get ready for work and think nothing more of it.Soon though, that bump has begun to harden into a noticeable lump and the end of your erect penis starts to "reach for the sky." Having an erection becomes painful. After a while, penetration becomes difficult, and the thought of having intercourse isn't as pleasing as it once was.
The good news is that the lump probably is not cancerous, but a benign buildup of plaque that is the hallmark of Peyronie's disease. Actually, that's a misnomer because Peyronie's is not a disease at all. Rather, it's a condition that many researchers believe develops as a result of repeated trauma - such as hitting or bending that causes localized bleeding inside the penis. The lump is scar tissue that develops in the healing process and in most cases will resolve itself without treatment in six to 12 months, according to the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse, a service of the National Institutes of Health.
The condition was first described at length in 1743 by the French surgeon to King Louis XV, Francois de la Peyronie, although the problem was noted in print as early as 1687. While a specific traumatic event, such as slipping out of your partner during intercourse and jamming your erection against her pubic bone, might explain acute cases of Peyronie's disease, it does not explain why most cases develop slowly and with no apparent traumatic event. It also does not explain why some cases disappear quickly and why approximately 30 percent of men with Peyronie's disease also develop fibrous tissue in their hand or foot.
Peyronie's disease occurs in about one percent of men, usually middle-aged and older men, perhaps due to decreased elasticity in the spongy tissue of the penis. Plaque can form of the top of the penis, causing the end of erection to bend unnaturally toward the ceiling, or on the bottom of the penis, causing the end of the erection to point toward the floor or to either side. The course of Peyronie's disease varies from patient to patient. It may stabilize and evolve no further, usually after the inflammatory phase subsidies. In most cases, bending is so slight that it does not interfere with sexual function. In more severe long-term cases, medical intervention and possibly surgery are needed to restore sexual function.
Some treatments that have been used for Peyronie's disease, with uneven and unproven results, include the oral administration of vitamin E and of para-aminobenzoate, a substance belonging to the family of B-complex molecules.
The direct injection of such agents as collagenase, dimethyl sulfoxide, steroids and calcium channel blockers has also been tried, but with mixed results. Steroids, such as cortisone, can produce unwanted side effects, such as atrophy, or death of healthy tissues. Perhaps the most promising directly injected agent is collagenase, an enzyme the breaks down collagen, the major component of Peyronie's plaques. Ultrasound therapy also has been used to attempt to reproduce the plaque.
But while these treatments may help reduce pain and soften plaque, "none of the treatments mentioned here has equal the body's natural ability to eliminate (the curvature caused by) Peyronie's disease," notes the Clearinghouse.
For men who do not heal naturally within a year or two and whose curvature interferes with penetration, one of two types of surgery have proven successful in resolving the problem.
The first involves removing or pinching tissue from the side of the penis opposite the plaque, which cancels out the bending effect. Known as the Nesbit procedure, this surgery can cause a slight shortening of the penis.
The second procedure involves the removal of the plaque followed by the insertion of tissue or insertion of a penile implant that increases rigidity of the penis and maintains penile length. This approach is recommended for the most severe cases.
"Most types of surgery produce positive results," according to the Clearinghouse, "but because complications can occur, and because many of the phenomena associated with Peyronie's disease are not corrected by surgery, most doctors prefer to perform surgery only on the small number of men with curvature so severe that it prevents sexual intercourse."
Reprinted with permission from Sex over 40, Vol. XVII, No. 3, 1998 DKT International, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, August 1998
This article appears in the following topics:
|
