Tag: buccal mucosal graft

Waiting for follow-up appointment

I never got a reply from the surgeon to my message about my wound reopening. It closed up again within a day or two and now the wound is looking pretty good, it’s not even very visible any more. The odd sensations from regrowing nerves now seem to mostly be in my foreskin instead of along the wound.

I did get a letter with a date for my follow-up appointment. Seems like they’d forgotten about it until I reminded them, again. With it being peak summer holiday season it was apparently impossible to give me an appointment in the period they originally told me (4-6 weeks after the removal of the catheter) and I’m going on vacation myself so the appointment’s not until the end of August.

Updates here will be sparse until the appointment, unless something interesting happens. I’m really hoping that nothing interesting happens.

Added some new photos

I’ve added some photos showing the current state of my penis. These are, of course, not suitable for work.

There’s still quite a curve when it’s erect and I can feel it stretching inside but it’s not painful. Sensation along the scar is still odd, occasionally stabbing pains and it’s quite unpleasant if anything rubs on it. The scar is actually much less red than the camera’s flash makes it look.

The lumpy part of the scar in my mouth has gone, now all I can feel is a line along the inside of my cheek.

Added page with articles and studies

I’ve added a page with some references to articles and studies about urethral strictures and their treatment that I found useful while I was dealing with doctors who weren’t very familiar with the subject.

Knowing when they don’t know what they’re talking about is very useful. It also gave me some reassurance that I was making the right decisions about my treatment.

Six weeks after surgery

I got an email today from someone who’d found this blog and reminded me that I hadn’t updated in a little while (I tried to reply to him but there seemed to be a problem with the email address).

Things are going quite well. The wound is becoming less visible and also less sensitive, it’s now mostly just feeling kind of odd when touched rather than slightly painful as it was before. I get occasional random twinges of pain, especially in the part of the wound on my scrotum but I’m assuming this is all just part of the nerves regrowing.

Peeing still stings a bit sometimes but that seems to be getting better too. I’ve also tried some gentle sexual activity and that hasn’t caused any problems. The internal scarring/swelling is still causing quite a severe bend to my penis when it’s erect and that’s something I’ll talk to the doctor about at my follow-up appointment in a few weeks.

When I get a chance I’ll take some more pictures and upload them. I’m also planning a post with some of the useful studies and papers I found.

Urethrography and discussing urethroplasty

Before I could see the senior urologist he wanted to know what he was dealing with, so I got an appointment for a cystourethrogram (x-ray of the urethra and bladder).

They’d be taking two related x-rays, a retrograde cystourethrogram (RCUG) as they squirted contrast through my urethra into my bladder and then a voiding cystourethrogram (VCUG) as I emptied my bladder.

The radiology staff didn’t seem especially familiar with the procedure, so even with a large crowd coming and going and giving advice it took over an hour. They seemed to have used too much numbing gel; every time they tried to inject the contrast the catheter would pop out.

The RCUG was eventually successful but the VCUG didn’t work so well. I found it very difficult to urinate on demand while lying on my side and having not had anything to drink for a couple of hours.

My x-ray appointment was at the end of January but I couldn’t get an appointment with the urologist until mid-March, partly because I was away quite a lot during those months.

When I finally saw the urologist he was the first doctor I’d met in the urology department with any bedside manner and he was very open to discussing the options.

I’d used the time before the appointment to continue my research and I’d found that in the few studies that actually tried to evaluate patient satisfaction buccal mucosal graft (using skin from the inside of the mouth) did better than penile flap (using skin from the penis) urethroplasty. It seems that the cosmetic results are better, there are fewer problems with skin tightness and less post-urination dribbling with the buccal mucosal graft.

The doctor would have preferred to use a penile flap and was more familiar with the technique. I had an especially awkward moment lying exposed on the examining table when he told me that there seemed to be plenty of spare skin and I had to try to explain that that’s not the case when my penis is erect.

He’d already discussed my case with a colleague in another county who had more experience with buccal mucosal grafts and we agreed that we’d go for that option and that he’d bring in his colleague to assist with the surgery.

Introduction

Like a lot of guys, I’d noticed the force of the flow when I was peeing decreasing over the years. I’d assumed it was just a normal part of getting older. In May 2014 it finally got to the point where I thought there must be something wrong. Peeing was becoming painful and the final straw was when I noticed a bit of blood.

It turned out to be a urethral stricture, scar tissue narrowing my urethra, and that diagnosis has so far resulted in lots of visits to the hospital and several surgeries: a urethrotomy (plus two failed attempts) and two buccal mucosal graft urethroplasties. In particular it was a stricture of the pendulous urethra, or distal urethra, within the external part of the penis. That seems to be quite unusual, especially when it’s not caused by disease or injury.

I’ve noticed that there’s not a lot of information out there about strictures and the treatments for them, especially from a patient’s point of view. So I’m writing this blog in the hope that it might be helpful for other guys with the same problem. If you want to get in touch with me you can use this contact form.

There are pictures to accompany some of the posts, but you’ll have to click a link to see them so that nobody unwillingly sees pictures of a penis. You can also find them in the NSFW category.