The Fundamental Facts You Must Know about Penis Enlargement Surgery
Cosmetic penis enlargement surgery (medically referred to as 'Phalloplasty') has been available since 1990. Although procedures have definitely evolved and improved over the years, surgery still remains a very controversial method.
Medical bodies such as the American Urological Association and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery still consider the safety and effectiveness of several techniques to be questionable, and many plastic surgeons still refuse to carry out penis enlargement surgery because of unpredictable results and the risks involved.
Procedures
Surgical penis enlargement actually requires two separate procedures, one to lengthen the penis and another to increase girth. These procedures can be performed individually, but are often performed at the same time.
Penis Lengthening Surgery
Surgical lengthening of the penis involves cutting the suspensory ligament that attaches the shaft of the penis to the pubic bone. Up to half the length of the penile shaft is actually held within the body, and the suspensory ligament causes this part of the penis to arch inside the body.
By cutting the suspensory ligament, the arched course of the penis is straightened, which causes more of the penis to be exposed.
After surgery, it's not uncommon for men to immediately gain an extra inch in flaccid penis length. However, immediate gains in erect length are far less dramatic and tend to average just 3/8 inch.
In order to make further gains in erect length it's necessary to stretch the penis for a minimum of 8 hours a day, through the use of a traction device. Without doing so, not only are further gains not made, but there is also the strong possibility that initial gains will be totally lost - due to tissue shrinkage during the healing process.
Men who do have the motivation to continue stretching, tend to gain about an extra 1/8 inch a month. So after 6 months of daily stretching, you could expect to have gained a total of an inch in erect length.
Complications with Lengthening Surgery
Apart from the high level of commitment you need to make even modest gains in erect length, the lengthening procedure has several potential drawbacks.
Once the suspensory ligament has been severed, the penis is no longer firmly secured to the body. Because of this, the unanchored penis tends to slip and shift during sex, and this continuous jarring can potentially lead to injury.
Cutting the suspensory ligament can also produce a number of noticeable visual side effects. Without the support of the suspensory ligament, erections often point straight out or even downwards. Less frequently, the penis sinks downwards into the scrotum, and the base of the penis becomes enveloped by large flaps of skin - a condition often referred to as 'scrotal dog ears'.
Penis Girth Enhancement Surgery
There are several techniques used to increase penis girth. These procedures have evolved one after another in an attempt to overcome the shortfalls of previous techniques.
Fat Transfer
The first girth enhancement procedure to be developed in the early 1990's was Fat Transfer. Even though there are more sophisticated procedures available, it remains a very commonly used technique.
Fat Transfer involves taking fat cells from the abdomen or inner thighs through liposuction, purifying the cells and then injecting them directly beneath the penis skin.
Although initially this can produce gains of 30-50 percent in penis girth, long-term results are very unpredictable. The fat cells tend to be easily reabsorbed back into the body, and the added girth is always at least partially lost. To complicate things further, the cells sometimes reabsorb unevenly - leaving a lumpy, uneven appearance to the penis. Further fat injections may help to even out the appearance, but there is always a risk some asymmetry will remain.
Another common complaint is not so much about the look of the penis, but about the feel. Men often state that during an erection, the fat cells feel much softer than the hard erectile tissue underneath - in fact, it's often said that the injected fat feels very much like breast tissue.
Dermal Fat Graft Augmentation
To overcome these problems, a more advanced technique called Dermal Fat Graft Augmentation has been developed.
This procedure involves removing two strips of tissue (consisting of skin and under lying fat) from the crease of the buttocks, and then grafting these strips beneath the skin of the penis. Because the grafted skin prevents the underlying layers of fat from being reabsorbed, this technique tends to produce much more permanent and stable results.
The main drawback with this technique is that sizeable incisions are made to obtain the grafts - each one about six inches long and two inches wide - and it is impossible to know how these incisions will heal. In some cases, they heal to form barely visible hairline scars, but in other cases far more prominent and visible scarring develops.
Alloderm Grafts
In order to remove the need to take tissue grafts from the patient, the latest development has been to use grafts made from a product called Alloderm.
Alloderm is actually cadaver skin i.e. skin from dead humans, which has been treated to remove any diseases and then freeze-dried. Just like dermal fat grafts, Alloderm is layered around the penis to build up the desired girth.
Alloderm seems to produce similar results to Dermal Fat Grafts with the added bonus that visible scarring is avoided. But this advantage comes at a price. Alloderm is extremely expensive and around $3000 of the material is usually needed, which knocks up the cost of a typical girth enhancement operation to around $8000.
Complications with Grafts
Both Dermal Fat Grafts and Alloderm do seem to produce much better results than Fat Transfer, but again complications can occur. With both procedures it's still possible that some reabsorbtion will take place, leading to a loss in girth. It's also possible for the grafts to shrink over time or for parts not to survive. In these cases, penis shortening or asymmetry are both possibilities.
Summary of Penis Enlargement Surgery
The most important point to note about penis enlargement surgery is that it definitely isn't a miracle solution. Stretching your penis for at least 8 hours a day for six months just to gain an inch is a tall order, and definitely takes a lot of dedication and commitment.
And with all types of surgery there's also the chance of infection, bleeding, bruising and scarring. Combine this with the specific risks associated with these procedures and you're taking a serious gamble with the health of your penis.
As far as cost is concerned, lengthening on its own will set you back around $4500. If you combine this with girth enhancement you're looking at $10,000-$12,000. That's certainly a lot to fork out for an unpredictable operation that almost all urologists and even many plastic surgeons do not recommend.
