Jelqing Injury

Hi Doctor:

In late September, I started a program of Penis Exercises which involved jelqing and stretching the penis.  I now know this was very stupid.  I did about 3 exercises for 3 days and on the last day when jelqing I felt a lighting bolt feeling on the left side of my penis towards the head.  I knew at that point I did something wrong.  For about 2 weeks after incident, the left side of the head was very tingly or sensitive.  This sensitivity has decreased somewhat, but the upper left part of the shaft from side to bottom of penis has also started to become much more sensitive and tingly.  My erections have been relatively normal and hard, but today I noticed the upper left side of my penis has become slightly sunken in when compared to the right side of my penis.

I am worried that I caused permanent damage to the penis.  Is it possible for this nerve sensitivity/ damage to cause penile atrophy?  The tingling is still there and fear the nerves may continue to damage the penis tissue.  Have you ever heard of this?  I certainly can live with a little tingling, but I fear my penis may continue to possibly shrink or sink in further and worry about my nerves not healing and becoming more "normal feeling".


Does nerve damage in the penis generally resolve itself with time?  Is there a way to determine if nerve damage is ongoing and actively causing atrophy?  

[Stephen Liroff, MD]

Any injury that you caused should not be progressive in the short term. Just avoid further trauma. You might try taking Motrin or another anti-inflammatory medication for a week or so and see if this helps.
With forceful bending of the erect penis (if that is what you were doing) you can get penile angulation and lumps (plaques) in the deeper tissue that appear quite a bit later (see Peyronie’s disease). Nothing further to do now and there is a good chance that nothing will happen later.
S. A.Liroff, M.D.

[Fred2]

A related discussion, Hard when flaccid was started.