How many times can you be implanted

[DaveKell]

I have heard this question many times.  This is my response.

I'm not worried since I got first implant at age 64 and it catapulted me back to a sex life I had in my 20's, only better IMO. I can only offer anecdotal example of another type of surgery I've had a total of 18 times. At age 36 I experienced a spontaneous onset of massive internal bleeding. Okay, here's the grossest detail. My wife had just left for work at her school and I got in the shower. While in there I suddenly had an uncontrollable need to evacuate my bowels and I COULD NOT hold it long enough to get out of the shower. I flooded the shower floor and walls with a huge mixture of dark and bright red blood. Freaked out on steroids! By the time I was able to stop I was very weak. I crawled to bedside phone and called my mom and told her not to call my wife (why, I have no idea). About 20 minutes later my wife and mom arrived. They said let's get you to the ER. I said no, I wanted to drive 26 miles to my doctor alone. They won, and it's a good thing because my doc visited me in the hospital and said I would've bled out along the road before reaching him. I went into surgery ostensibly to remove my entire large intestine but came out of it being told I had a very rare birth defect in the last few inches of the small intestine that had ruptured. I was going to be fine, so they said, and I had lost half the volume of blood in my body. I'll never forget having an IV saline bag hooked up to each arm and having blood drawn that looked like pink lemonade!

Over the long haul I was not "fine". Turns out, I had survived something I only had statistically a 2% of surviving. I also turned out to have a body that produced tons of scar tissue called adhesions that subsequently strangled my bowels 8 times that resulted in another opening of a 14 inch incision down my belly and eviscerating my intestines onto my chest for a bowel resection. For over 20 years I had another major surgery every 18-24 months apart. After surgery #17 left me hospitalized for 6 months with horrible complications, I was unable to have food for over 11 months. I was hooked up to an IV "nutrition" liquid. After I was finally let out to go home, a few days before Christmas, I spent another 5 months at home where my wife put chain locks on the refrigerator and pantry doors so she could go to work without worrying about me. I should add that during that 11 months I couldn't watch tv because any food commercial drove me to the edge of insanity. My surgeon who left me in this shape refused to attempt anything further to help me. After a year I was fortunate to find an experienced surgeon in Dallas willing to give it a shot. He did surgery #18 almost ten years ago now. I told him beforehand I needed it to be his finest hour and it apparently was. I was finally cured of all my ongoing issues and owe him my life because I already told my entire family I was going to check out if the surgery wasn't a success. Life without food had no appeal to me.

The long and short of this is that I still function 100% normally with my intestines and never required a colostomy bag. I'm inclined to think that if my body survived that much trauma 18 times on my abdomen with a 14 inch incision, my little ol' implant surgery could be redone however many times I need it with no issues. If you've done the math and are wondering what the missing number of surgeries were for, it was to repair incisonal hernias and to remove a necrotic gall bladder that got blown out by too many months on IV nutrition. The LAST thing I'm dwelling on is a revision surgery and I plan to be around a hell of a long time.

[Hawk]

I specifically asked Dave to post his powerful story here.  It was not just for its value in answering the question but I think it has even greater value in conveying a lesson to those that feel life has dealt them a tough deal or those that feel hopeless, even suicidal.

Dave shared with me in a PM these additional details that drive home a touching story that would have been such a loss to so many, including him if he had not persevered.

Dave said:
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Since I've been self-employed all my life I've had lots of times of no income after surgery recovery times. After that first event with the bleeding, I couldn't lift a gallon of milk for 6 months at age 36. We had been in our new dream house about a year. The mortgage company refused to work with me on it since they knew by foreclosing on me they would gain a big shop building with a second drive poured back to it. My house was sold on the courthouse steps while I was still only able to lay in bed. I wished many times the medical emergency had simply killed me because all we could afford was an ancient little cottage in an undesirable area. I was depressed for a very long time. I hated swallowing my pride and having to let strangers buy us groceries.

If I had died we never would have had our 3rd child and her two beautiful children. Seventeen surgeries later I'm retired to a beautiful, much nicer home in the country. Houses are just sticks and bricks. Life is precious no matter how bleak it seems at times.

[TonySa]

Dave, what an inspiration.  Thanks!

[SW01]

Amazing story. Persevere and do what you can to make your life better when you can. Something similar happened to me about that age. I ran into a pointy object in my stomache. Docs thought they fixed it. Did not fix everything. Fine one day. Woke up one morning and told my wife we are going to er I felt weird. Was ok for about 3 mile trip. Got to er and started taking all my clothes off in waiting room because I was so hot. Fyi you get moved to front of line when you are naked. 105 temp or so will do that to you.

Appendicitis they thought. Nope. When they cut me open to look.  Sewed me back up. Hooked me up to iv and told my wife if I am alive in a few days they will see what happens next. Woke up about 10 days later. All worked out but scar from my belly button to the top of my penis. Nothing inside is where it should be so no surgeon is using anything but a scrotal incision to put an implant in me.

Moral of story is life sometimes sucks but you still make it what you can and roll with your best options. I think an implant is a pretty good one.

[Frank55]

Also illustrates what has been stated on this forum many times: finding the right Doctor can make a huge difference. Thank goodness for the surgeon you found in Dallas. Thanks for sharing such an inspiring story.

[Pfract]

That was a very impressive story Dave! Amazing you came out of it in a positive way. As for the question you asked... I think you should take a look at this topic I posted on thesame subject:

The more revisions you have on your implant, the greater the infection risk? - Peyronies Society Forums