VED - seeking those who can NOT use it

[swolf]

I don't know if this warrants its own new thread but I would specifically like to hear from anyone that has tried the VED and found out it is something they cannot use. I read a comment in particular recently by someone who I think is still active on the boards, and it mentioned that they're unable to use the VED for some reason, and now I can't find that thread. Why doesn't the VED work for you? Can you use it with any amount of pressure? Does it cause you more pain? Does any small amount of pressure worsen your condition? Does it reactivate your inflammation? Or for whatever reason. I just cannot get it to work for me and right now I just need to hear from others to determine if it is causing me problems or not. What was the progression of events from buying a VED to realizing it wasn't for you? I'm really at a loss here.

[swolf]

Still interested in hearing from guys that have not been able to make the VED work for them. I cannot use the VED in any way shape or form without it causing pain, extreme tightness, often further damage, etc. This has to be related to my recurring Lyme disease because I don't have many other explanations.  

[swolf]

For the record, in case it helps any other guys out there, I've tried repeatedly to use the VED and each time was left worse off than before. For the most part there were four time periods in which I attempted to use it, at most lasting about a week or two, this last time lasting one session which ended in extreme pain for a few days. At this point my condition is significantly worse than it was prior to the VED, the damage mostly being restricted girth (there seems to be a 'sheath' of injured tissue over my penis which makes my flaccid state much narrower and drawn up towards the body, though luckily the tissue is still able to stretch and I can gain an erection. Erect girth still has the tight restriction and also ridges up the length of it that others have mentioned) and a worsening to the mass of damage on the underside base, which causes some curvature (which does straighten out more when erect) and keeps the underside of my penis from filling out all the way. This has always been the biggest issue for me and it doesn't fill out on a full erection. My penis is 'flatter,' for lack of a better word. The entire thing feels more fibrotic and dense. Very much so. I've lost a lot of sensitivity. I also have thrombosed veins from the last session or two of the VED, and they've been around for I think close to two months now. Pentox has not helped much with these thrombosed veins.

I believe this is mostly caused by my underlying chronic Lyme disease, along with possibly other factors. Using the VED was kind of bewildering because my body was reacting to pretty much any stretching (my first attempt I think DID involve some over-pumping, but after that I can almost unequivocally say I didn't over-pump) with negative side effects: pain, damage, etc. So, I don't know. The best course of action seems to be a full spectrum emphasis on restoring my health, which includes trying to overcome Lyme if possible. Thought I was already on that path but I guess not fully. I had a Lyme flare-up recently and my entire body was stiff and in pain for weeks, along with floating pain in the penis and weaker erections (and harder to induce them) and I've just broken through that within the past week or two. I'm trying to set up an appointment with an integrative medicine clinic so I can focus on Lyme, but with almost no money and no insurance, that's going to involve a careful financial tango. It's my health and my life--and my PENIS, LOL--so it's not hard to get motivated to do that, but... well, it's all about money basically. I have been sustained throughout by a great relationship with an acupuncturist/Chinese herbalist (which helped me kicked this recent flare-up that was probably caused by some drinking--whatever, I'm human, and bored), but I seem eminently capable of inflicting further damage on myself to the point that that mostly amounts to treading water.

It was like pushing play on the remote control and having my TV blow up. So just be careful! If you have an underlying health condition be extra vigilant and stop at ANY signs of discomfort until you can sort out if it's helping you or not.

[TooYoungForThis]

I am not sure if the VED is still good for me yet, I have had mixed results, but I will answer with what I know and the difficulties I have encountered.

Why doesn't the VED work for you?
     
       It did work at first, but I have not been using it consistently. Sometimes I go a few days without it because I get over enthused with the results and try to see if the gains are accumulative. This is not so. Also, the plaque I have is nested at the bottom of the visible penis and a bit more inwards towards the pelvis. It's been narrowed to about as thin as a banana stem (the thinnest part of the banana) but perhaps slightly thicker. The VED does not surround that part and actually rests the opening on the scar, meaning I'm just stretching the penis above the scar. I am however stretching the bottom visible part of the penis, and it actually does seem to help. I can achieve full erections near the same size but the stem is still severely narrowed at the base. Does anyone know a similar case of severe narrowing that was cured? It'd really do my emotions some good.

Can you use it with any amount of pressure?

               I used it with too much pressure at first because I was amazed how it pumped me to my original size and perhaps even bigger. Now I apply very gentle force following the protocols outlined. I do however pump it to the max without pain to a very satisfying hard product. I do not use the constriction rings, because I do not necessarily have ED and the ring would constrict part of the injury and I can't have that. So, I just use it for therapy. I will not that I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME GET MORNING WOOD. I am really getting depressed, if anyone could help me with that I'd appreciate it.

Does it cause you more pain?  

                 I have started to use it in such a way that I point it upwards in order to keep the base of the penis straight up so that I am not pumping a horizontally bent penis and resting the lips of the opening of the ved on the inflicted area. After stretching the plaque, it seems to be making me feel pain when I wear my pants that adhere to my legs moreso than average pants. Even when I wear loose pants though it can still hurt. It wasn't hurting for a while but now it seems to be sometimes. I'm scared that I may be making it worse because sometimes the stem feels smaller than it was the day before. I'm really worried and depressed.

Does any small amount of pressure worsen your condition?  

            I still need to try it consistently for at least a month with gradual and gentle pressure before I can make an accurate answer for this. I am always obsessing over my penis but it always seems to be slightly different than I remember it. Sometimes I will think that it's actually going to be okay because it's showing good signs, but the next day it will be awful or hard to achieve an erection. Granted, there are some days that I miss taking my pentox and enzymes and what not. I was using the thatchers formula and I actually think the DMSO and nascent iodine was helping. I also used some vitamin e because why not? Ran out of Iodine though. Right now I'm breaking up pills of krill oil, seppeptase, and nattokinase into the DMSO and applying that because I'm desperate and limited in resources. Any tips or success story replies from anyone would be greatly appreciated. I need help!

Does it reactivate your inflammation?

            I really hope to god not. I am scared beyond relief. I think if my condition were to worsen I would not be able to recover. As it stands, I think I may be okay if this Xiaflex is all it's hyped up to be. Does anyone know if the tissue will still be there if the plaque is destroyed? If the plaque is removed, will the body just not make another plaque?

Anyways, this is all I know based on what I have experienced. I have had Peyronies for a bit over a year now and did not start treatment until about 4-5 months ago. I am really upset with myself and am having really bad time coping.



Can you use it with any amount of pressure?   Does any small amount of pressure worsen your condition? Does it reactivate your inflammation? Or for whatever reason. I just cannot get it to work for me and right now I just need to hear from others to determine if it is causing me problems or not. What was the progression of events from buying a VED to realizing it wasn't for you? I'm really at a loss here.

[TooYoungForThis]

Swolf, I looked into Lyme disease a bit.

"Exposure to the Borrelia bacterium during Lyme disease possibly causes a long-lived and damaging inflammatory response,[74] a form of pathogen-induced autoimmune disease.[75] The production of this reaction might be due to a form of molecular mimicry, where Borrelia avoid being killed by the immune system by resembling normal parts of the body's tissues.[76][77]

It is therefore possible that if some chronic symptoms come from an autoimmune reaction, this could explain why some symptoms persist even after the spirochetes have been eliminated from the body. This hypothesis may explain chronic arthritis that persists after antibiotic therapy, similar to rheumatic fever, but its wider application is controversial.[78][79]"

I am not sure if this could be the reason, but I'm sure your lime disease is severely limiting you. I have realized that I eat way too unhealthy and as a result my immune system is not doing as well as it could. Also I am slightly overweight, I used to have a six pack but I got depressed and yeah man... crap happens. If I were to lose about 25 pounds and that flab of fat on my crotch I'm sure I'd gain another fat inch (I know because when I push back the skin it looks much much longer), I'd also probably have increased blood flow and reduced scar tissue. I have read on the main part of this site that heat therapy reduces plaque size, I'd recommend that you start doing that on an average basis, it would help man.

Apart from that, I do not know much more than anyone else and seek advice too. I do hope that my posts help.

[swolf]

Thanks, yeah Lyme creates a whole host of problems. There is a very interesting thread (https://www.peyroniesforum.net/index.php/topic,1156.0.html) on the boards about being deficient in certain amino acids and that playing a part in the development of Peyronie's, and after some research I read that Lyme can indeed wreak havoc on those exact levels. The tick bite that infected me was right below the left inguinal groove on my thigh, near my junk of course, and I developed Peyronie's shortly after, so there's no doubt it's related. Lyme devastates your healing capacities. You can have an amino acid test done at Life Extension (http://www.lef.org/index.htm), among other places, for around $130, but I assume I would need help in accurately interpreting the results so that is why I hope to be able to see a doctor soon. I do think that is something that would balance somewhat just through a broad spectrum approach at health, so I'm doing whatever I can. Diet and exercise are crucial, and now that I've managed the anxiety side effects of it I've started taking Pentox regularly, which has been a real boon. I've heard recently of the Cowden Protocol for Lyme, so that's something I'm looking into, but again: $$$. There's some discussion on the web about what in the protocol is actually necessary, what is a little more optional, and how to lower the price on everything, so that's something I'm looking into. Like I said, Traditional Chinese medicine has worked wonders for me, but I've had Lyme flare-ups (and the negative side effects from the VED have happened when I felt completely fine with no immediate Lyme symptoms) so it's not completely gone (unless it's just a residual auto-immune condition like you mention! very interesting).

The frustrating part is I can tell that the VED should work wonderfully -- I mean, when I'm in the middle of using it and thinking about the process of how it works and everything it just seems so right -- but then it just... Doesn't. Work.  

[swolf]

Thanks for all your help through here and PMs, Old Man. It's important to drive the points home because a simple, strict adherence to the protocol is the only way you should approach the VED, and I can see how it should work for the majority of guys that try it. But, as frustrating as it is for me to realize, VED therapy doesn't work for me in any way, at least at this time, so I have a long road of treating my underlying conditions before I can think about trying it again.  

[TooYoungForThis]

Swolf the base of my penis is fibrotic and dense as well. I know what you mean by the flat underside, I sort of have that. It seriously looks as if someone took a massive chuck out of the tubes that erect toward the base of my penis. I can still get full erections but it just looks and feels strange. I am hoping the VED will fix this, some have said that it has restored girth but I can't know for certain if it's actually true.

I am suffering from a severe lack of funds as well, but do whatever you have to do to get your health fixed, money is replaceable. If you haven't been doing the VED therapy gently, try it out at least once every day (extremely carefully since it hasn't done you good). If you have been gentle and it's still making it worse, than the decision to stop is obvious.

I apologize if I do give bad advice since my situation is entirely unique and I haven't seen a similar scenario on here yet. It is a fact thought that heat therapy WILL reduce the size of the plaque, and if not that it will at least be helpful.  

[swolf]

Thanks, and you're not giving bad advice.

I hope if any one else out there finds they can't use the VED even with careful, cautious use they contribute to this thread. It can really be a bewildering experience so some documented experiences can only help others.  

[swolf]

The VED may have ruined any chance of a decent, timely recovery I had going for me. I am watching as I just waste away, and the hardest part to think about is that it was preventable. Before trying the VED I pondered the damage it could do and that thought made me shudder, but I was confident everything would go all right. In fact, it has taken what was in a lot of ways a mild case of Peyronie's and turned it into a nightmare. Pentox seems to be doing very little and I am getting progressively worse. I'm good at detaching and blocking it out of my mind during the day, but realistically I can see what is happening. Please be very careful in trying the VED.

[Hawk]

Swolf,

I nagging question is how do we know the VED caused problems rather than the possibility that just like the Pentox it failed to stop the process in your case?

[swolf]

The VED unequivocally caused problems. I used to have distal tapering (among other problems) but with a basically spongy base half of my penis, and I now have extremely tight restriction on girth on 100% of my penis. I used the VED and then these things happened...it was a direct effect.

I got an acupuncture treatment a few days ago and got back on Chinese herbs that I have been off of for a while for financial reasons (the prices are shooting upwards...I hear because of availability and demand?), and I immediately experienced some loosening up and relaxation in that area, which is a blessing at the moment because mentally and emotionally it is giving me some breathing space. But where as before I had to contend with progression of Peyronie's being limited to several keys spots of damage, now the damaged area includes the surface of my entire penis, so progression for me now means the entire thing is wasting away in ways it wouldn't have before. I am in terrible shape at the moment, relieved a little by the herbs I'm taking again and supported by Pentox, CoQ10, ALC, Cialis, and fish oil, but terrible shape nonetheless.

[Hawk]

I mean no disrespect.  Remember that I encouraged you to post about this.  

I am convinced that you are convinced but all you tell me is it is worse now than it was before, I used a VED so the VED caused it to get worse.  What about the other 5000 things you did during that time period. maybe they caused it to get worse.  Maybe it just got worse and would have progressed regardless.  There are lots of men with progressing Peyronies Disease.  Some will be stopped by the VED, some will progress in spite of the VED.  I wonder if all of those men will think the VED caused the progression?

I just need something else to convince me other than you repeating " yep it was the VED".  "Yep, direct effect."  Repeating it is not an additional piece of evidence.  How do you connect the two other than the fact that the VED was something that preceded the progression.  Based on that logic alone, it could be your tooth paste.  Maybe, herbs or LED lights, maybe stress or worry, maybe none of these

[swolf]

No offense taken, but I'm not sure what else to say. It's not really a question in my mind whether or not the VED caused this additional damage. I used the VED, experienced some of the worst pain I've felt in my life, and immediately afterwards it happened. If you get hit by a car and break your arm...? I tried the VED again months later and same thing: pain (not as extreme as before because I was much gentler, but pain nonetheless), sudden damage. It's a slow progression now, but the restrictive damage around the whole shaft of my penis was sudden and... caused by using the VED.

I got an acupuncture treatment a few days ago and got back on Chinese herbs that I have been off of for a while for financial reasons (the prices are shooting upwards...I hear because of availability and demand?), and I immediately experienced some loosening up and relaxation in that area

For the record, it loosened up a little, but even completely loose and relaxed there's not a whole lot of girth left.

[funnyfarm]

I had a similiar experience as Swolf, extreme pain and worsening of symptoms immediately after using the VED LIGHTLY both times.  Did not want to try a third time and cause further damage.

I am curious does the doctor needle your penis scar tissue or only other parts of your body ? I may try chinese medicine /accupunture also if you think it is working.

[DO]

next month will be one year using a VED unit. for 6 months it was the only thing I did with the topical verap. I now  am using it with a traction device and Verap. injections, multiple supplements, Cialis every day. Today I noticed improvement in girth. I am hoping that there would be improvement in length as I feel that I have lost a inch or two. I use ved every morning in the shower for almost 20 minutes ( I shave,and brush my teeth in there to keep time with in reason). Every night I use traction for up to two - 3 hours. The curve down ward is almost gone but the shape is not what I expected. I am still asked about having a implant done and I just can't go there yet ... I have 5 more shots of verap to do and that will bring the total of 12. Then I will see what happens. My improvement was measured by my Doc. and he rates it as a 33% improvement. He is surprised and that's why we will continue with the VI, to maintain status. I learned over the past year to stop obsessing so much over the problem, and look at the VED and Traction as a form of therapy to get better.