Stuck

For some strange reason, the foreskin on Troy’s penis keeps getting stuck to the head. He’s circumcised, but there’s a slight excess of skin left, and it continuously gets stuck over time. We’ve already had to have the doctor “rip” it off three times, which is very painful for Troy. We’re then supposed to clean it and put Vaseline on it every day to keep it from sticking again. But it always does anyway. Because he goes to daycare, we can’t control this process all the time, and it seems like sometime during the day, it sticks. We wondered if there was an issue with the circumcision, like maybe they didn’t cut enough skin off or something, but the doctor said it looked fine, and he should grow out of it over time.

I’ve noticed that it’s been stuck again for quite a while now, and I’ve been trying to slowly work it apart…without any success. Troy is notoriously bad about complaining and slamming his legs closed anytime I try to tug on the skin. I get it, but it’s also frustrating. Well, last night, I noticed what looked like a white cyst right at the “stuck” location. It was pretty small, but still concerning. I was convinced that our lack of hygiene had finally caused a bigger problem. So, I took Troy to the doctor today to get it checked out.

The doctor quickly ruled out a cyst, but did note that something was wrong. The first thing he had to do was separate the stuck skin again. However, this time it was a whole lot more difficult, which made me feel better that I wasn’t a complete failure, since I couldn’t do it. He had to put a numbing cream on Troy’s penis and wait 15 min before performing the operation. Even though it was a weird sensation for Troy, it was actually the least of a crying ordeal that we’ve been through with this procedure. In fact, Troy didn’t make a peep when the doctor managed to finally rip the skin apart.

And when he did, he extracted a very large white piece of diaper lint from under the obstructed skin. I don’t know how it had gotten wedged under there or how long it had been there before a tiny bit had wormed it’s way to the outside. But it couldn’t have been comfortable. The doctor put Polysporine on the now very red, very raw wound, which should also help keep it from sticking again. We’re supposed to do this three times a day for the next couple of weeks until it heals. And then we can either keep doing it or switch to Vaseline for a few weeks after that. All I know is that I don’t want to have to go through this again, so I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t get stuck again.