Millions of men reportedly suffer from a curved pen!s, but are too embarrassed to seek help due to societal stigma, a urologist has cautioned.
“This population, I call the population that suffers in silence,” Dr. Mohit Khera of the Baylor College of Medicine told Attia of the affliction, per the Daily Mail. “They never talk about it.” he added
He was specifically referring to those who suffer from Peyronie’s disease, a “noncancerous condition resulting from fibrous scar tissue that develops on the penis and causes curved, painful erections,” per the Mayo Clinic.
For the uninitiated, “each side of the penis contains a spongelike tube (corpus cavernosum) that contains many tiny blood vessels,” they write.
When one becomes “sexually aroused,” the blood flow to the penis increases, causing the penis to straighten when stiff.
However, in the case of Peyronie’s disease, the scarred area doesn’t stretch when the penis becomes erect, causing the member to become disfigured and possibly painful, per the site.
Khera estimates that “up to 7% to 9% of men in the US” have this unfortunate curvature of the phallus. However, statistics indicate that this number is only around 1 in 100 as many men refuse to report the condition due to the humiliation factor.
While the causes of PD aren’t completely understood, it is generally caused by repeated injury to the member during sex, masturbation, sports or a freak accident.
In some cases, this askew penis develops gradually over time and the disease is more common as people age — with the average age of onset clocking in at 57, per Khera’s website.
Either way, this causes the penis to bend up to 180 degrees when erect or flaccid, leading to a host of complications. These include extreme pain, erectile dysfunction and an inability to have intercourse.
Peyronie’s patients can suffer from reduced penis length as well.
“The issue with this is that it has a significant impact on their quality of life,” declared Khera. “Patients who have the disease really suffer from depression. They feel like there is a disfigurement.”
A 2021 study in the “Journal of Men’s Health” found that 27% of Peyronie’s sufferers had clinical depression.
“Studies show that they are very silent and never seek care,” the urologist said.
Treatment options include surgery to extract the plaque or injections to break it up while patients can also straighten the phallus with traction devices such as RestoreX.
Timing is everything when it comes to aligning one’s manhood as Khera points out that the disease has two phases.
There’s the active phase, which can last for over a year, and occurs when the scar tissue is still forming and the penis is gradually becoming more crooked.
Khera adds: “There is an active phase for 12 months and in that 12 months it is the 15, 40 and 45 rule.”
“Of all the men, 15% will just get better. Forty percent will stay the same. And 45% of patients will get worse,” he added. “Because of this, you have to tell patients, look I am not going to operate on you because if I operate on you and you are the 45% that gets worse I will have to operate again.”
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