little bumps on penis

[stillworried]

I am freaking out.  I am a 21 year old male.  I had unprotected sex with this girl i knew in middle of march.  Late september I found a couple of bumps on the shaft of my penis.  I had been scared to get tested since the encounter, but once I saw them I went to the health center of my college.  Doctor said they were not warts, and then i got tested for all the general stds, Herpes, HIV, chlamydia, and ghonnoria.  They all came back negative.  I started examining my penis so closely though.  Even bought a magnifying glass.  I looked on the head of my penis, and there our hundreds of tiny little bumps.  They are not raised that much, and you can hardly notice them.  It makes the skin look kind of rough, but if you spread the skin out you can distinguish the bumps.  Even though the health center doctor did examine the head of my penis, I decided to go to a dermatologist.  That was about 3 weeks ago.  I mean, i had never noticed them before, so i'm not sure if they have always been there if they are recent, because i never examined my penis before now.  The bumps on my shaft are fading and almost gone, except for a bit of redness.  The dermatologist looked at the bumps on my shaft and said they were definitely not warts.  He looked at the bumps on the head of my penis and said that they were not warts either.  Just to make sure, he brought in his partner to look at them, and he agreed that they were not warts.  He ended up telling me they were penile papules.  But I thought that those only came up around the edge of the penis head, and these are all over the head.  You really cant notice them unless you are looking for them, but I know they are there so I am looking at my penis all of the time.  I am worried that these doctors mis-diagnosed these bumps.  I cant help feel that these are warts and they are going to get bigger and bigger.  I don't think they have gotten bigger since I noticed them over a month ago but can't really tell because i examine my penis every day.  I don't know what to do and cant seem to get any resolution.  What do you think these are? If they are warts, can you treat them if they are that small and numerous? If they are not is there anything i can do get rid of them?  Maybe i should just take the doctors word for it (he did say that he has seen a lot of penile warts), but it is very hard because i know they are there.  Sorry for writing so much, but any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

My advice is that you stop looking at your penis.  Warts hardly ever affect the head of the penis.  The bumps you're seeing may not be "pearly penile papules," which indeed affect the rim of the head, but that doesn't mean they're warts--they're probably tiny cysts which have always been there only, as you yourself realize, you haven't looked.  You were wise to have a dermatologist look at these.  Now it's time to put the episode behind you and practice safe sex from now on so you don't drive yourself crazy.

Take care.

Dr. Rockoff

[stillworried]

i forgot to mention that the little bumps are around the rim of my penis head too, as well as the rest of it.

[SlightlyPeeved]

Yo man.  Take it from someone who has BOTH GWs and cysts (sebecaous prominence)<--not spelled right.  When you get a wart you'll know.  Cysts are small, can really only been seen well when you stretch the skin.  I was as paranoid as you once, and have a magnifying glass as well.  

Here's the trick.  The cysts will be a singular (usually white) bump that is maybe situtated on another area of whitish raised skin.  Warts will be on top of the skin, noticable, and will be a cluster of multiple bumps sort of looking like cauliflower.  The will appear this way even if they are very small and you are looking at them through the magnifying glass.  Also warts will grow and change over time, your cysts will not.

Do a google search for sebecaous prominence or Fordyce spots and you can pull up pictures of what I'm talking about.  I had the cysts for 22 years before I first saw them, and then went another 3 years before I got my warts (sweet!)  You can't miss a wart once its there, and your derm wouldn't have either.

Peace & Good Luck.

[johnnyblaze]

hey i was wondering whats wrong with my penis, i can only pull the skin back far enough just to see a bit of the head of my penis, and i already know i have smegma but im still trying to figure out how to clean it properly too.

thanks for the help!!

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