VED first impressions

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pless

Largely due to reading this forum I bought a VED.  The Augusta Manual Vitality cost $84 from diabetessupplies4less.com. A US friend forwarded it for $26.  I paid 19% VAT upon arrival.  So it's not so expensive for a European to buy this.

The Augusta unit appears to be good value for its price -- well designed and executed.  I trust that the vacuum pump's innards will match the externals.

There's real joy at seeing ones penis with its pre-Peyronies size and shape.  Even if the VED yields no permanent improvements it yields that joy. Many of us, whether we had biggish ones or average ones or smallish ones, suffer psychologically from the size loss due to Peyronies.  When length decreases by 15% and girth decreases by 15% we're left with less than 5/8 of the thing (volume or mass) we used to have.  Looking at old photos can show us that we haven't lost our minds -- the Peyronies' loss is real.  Looking at our penis temporarily restored in the VED tube provides positive pleasure.  After this experience I did a better job with the 5/8 remnant offered to my wife.  Wives and girlfriends are hardly troubled by our size loss.  We are.

Four days of experimenting with the VED show me how poorly I understand Peyronies and the functioning of the penis.  I thought that the tunica albuginea was the size limiter of the penis.  It was of elastic material but with a firm limit.  Thus stretched penis length is pretty definite and correlates well with erection length.  I thought Peyronies afflicted the tunica albuginea reducing its maximum size.  But the engorged penis in the VED easily, painlessly surpassed that maximum size.  How?  Even some minutes after removing the VED, when the pressure of blood within the penis must have returned to normal, the penis girth was large.  Why?  Since Peyronies, my erections have been hard but small.  The engorged penis in the VED is not very hard but large.  Are the tunica albuginea's mechanical properties affected by the vacuum-induced fluid flows through it?  My experimenting isn't far along.  I'm taking it slowly and haven't produced a real erection in the VED yet.

The sizing inserts aren't working perfectly for me.  I use a single insert with plenty of lube at its bottom and there's a good vacuum seal without need to remove pubic hair.  The single sizing insert feels like the right size for me, but it is causing the base of the penis to look indented under vacuum.  The sizing insert I.D. is 1.80".  The tube I.D. just beyond is 2.11".  Perhaps my penis wants a midway sizing insert with 1.95" I.D.  I don't think the Vitality could be comfortable with no sizing insert, because the bare tube wall is just 0.08" and sharp-cornered at the end.  So there's a need for sizing inserts not supplied by Augusta.  I'm considering grinding some of material from the inside of the sizing insert.  Another possibility is to fabricate a comfortable rubber end for the bare tube.

Buckeye

Pless,

Try looking in office furniture supply for desk/wiring grommets. They're made of plastic instead of rubber and you can get them to fit various diameters of openings. I got a couple for my VED tubes and rounded the edge with sand paper. It provides a bit larger opening than the rubber grommet insert and sands a lot better. It's also much more comfortable than using the tube without the rubber grommet.

Buckeye

Hawk

Quote from: pless on October 02, 2012, 01:31:50 PM
Four days of experimenting with the VED show me how poorly I understand Peyronies and the functioning of the penis.  I thought that the tunica albuginea was the size limiter of the penis.  It was of elastic material but with a firm limit.  Thus stretched penis length is pretty definite and correlates well with erection length.  I thought Peyronies afflicted the tunica albuginea reducing its maximum size.  But the engorged penis in the VED easily, painlessly surpassed that maximum size.  How?  Even some minutes after removing the VED, when the pressure of blood within the penis must have returned to normal, the penis girth was large.  Why?  Since Peyronies, my erections have been hard but small.  The engorged penis in the VED is not very hard but large.  Are the tunica albuginea's mechanical properties affected by the vacuum-induced fluid flows through it?  My experimenting isn't far along.  I'm taking it slowly and haven't produced a real erection in the VED yet.

Your comments are difficult for me to resolve since your contention about the TA being the size limiter, and bpsfl relating to maximum erection size are correct comments.  If I take a BPSFL measurement and then place the ruler inside the VED and place a piece of tape on the outside barre of the VED at that measurement, I cannot pump past that mark even with an over aggressive vacuum.  The only comment I have ever encountered contrary to this was by a doctor that dismissed the ability of the VED to increase size and I largely dismiss his comment that went something like "there can be an illusion of increased size sometimes due to edema filling the tissue between the TA and the skin."  I have never experienced that even with somewhat over aggressive vacuum.  

I am left to think that your perceptions of size are wrong and that your length under vacuum in the tube are no longer than your BPSFL.
Prostatectomy 2004, radiation 2009, currently 70 yrs old
After pills, injections, VED - Dr Eid, Titan 22cm implant 8/7/18
Hawk - Updated 10/27/18 - Peyronies Society Forums

pless

Buckeye: I removed the sharp step of the insert.  It was pretty easy to shape the rubber using a rotary burr, and then a bit of sanding.

pless

Quote from: Hawk on October 02, 2012, 03:20:29 PMI am left to think that your perceptions of size are wrong and that your length under vacuum in the tube are no longer than your BPSFL.

I didn't attempt to compare stretched length measurement with inside-the-VED measurement.  My report was based on perceptions comparing my normal erections with the in-VED state.  For the normal erection the fat on the pubis is not compressed, so this length comparison is impossible.  Also the glans, being outside the tunica albuginea, is very much enlarged by the VED and can bias length perceptions.  I primarily compared girth. (Stretched measurement can't apply to girth.)  There is an optical effect which makes a width as seen inside a plastic cylinder slightly smaller than true.  Nevertheless the width (girth) was large.  With the VED removed the width (girth) remained briefly larger than for my normal erections.  It was not an edema since I could feel the tunica albuginea dirctly beneath the skin.  

How can the soft and flexible penis removed from the VED have larger girth than the hard and rigid erection?  The elastic properties of the tunica albuginea are generally assumed isotropic. The tunica albuginea sets limits to both the length and the girth.  The limits are be reached simultaneously when there is enough pressure difference inside versus outside the tunica albuginea, and the penis is then hard and rigid then.  My VED experiences don't confirm that understanding.

 

Hawk

Quote from: pless on October 04, 2012, 01:40:09 AM
I didn't attempt to compare stretched length measurement with inside-the-VED measurement.  My report was based on perceptions comparing my normal erections with the in-VED state.  For the normal erection the fat on the pubis is not compressed so this length comparison is impossible.

That is the entire point of a BPSFL measurement, because you measure pressed against the bone and normal weight fluctuations do not affect the measurement.  You can press the tube against the bone to get a bone pressed VED length as well.  The pubis bone gives a fixed point of reference.  You can of course take an Bone Pressed length of a natural erection.  There really is nothing very mysterious about any of this once you understand the concept.

Quote from: pless on October 04, 2012, 01:40:09 AM(Stretched measurement can't apply to girth.)  There is an optical effect which makes a width as seen inside a plastic cylinder slightly smaller than true.  Nevertheless the width (girth) was large.  With the VED removed the width (girth) remained briefly larger than for my normal erections.  It was not an edema since I could feel the tunica albuginea dirctly beneath the skin.  

How can the soft and flexible penis removed from the VED have larger girth than the hard and rigid erection?
It is easy however to measure your erect girth and then measure your VED girth mid shaft or right behind the glans and compare the two.  When you remove the VED just grasp the base of your penis and squeeze or milk slightly forward to assure you are at full VED girth behind the glans and measure with the other hand.  You can use a tape to measure girth or calipers to measure diameter.

I do not believe your ved length can exceed your BPSFL.  Both of these however may be larger than your erection length if you get weak erections.  Likewise, your VED girth could be greater than natural erection girth if you get weak erections.
Prostatectomy 2004, radiation 2009, currently 70 yrs old
After pills, injections, VED - Dr Eid, Titan 22cm implant 8/7/18
Hawk - Updated 10/27/18 - Peyronies Society Forums

pless

Quote from: Hawk on October 04, 2012, 12:47:08 PMThere really is nothing very mysterious about any of this once you understand the concept.

I did the BPSFL measurement and the corresponding measurement in the VED and they agreed to the millimeter. This does show that there is a maximum length set by the TA and the VED brings the penis to this maximum.  Incidentally the length (including engorged glans) in the VED measured 2 millimeters more than a corresponding (natural) measurement made in 1962, the last time I measured the thing.  (There was little pubic fat then.)  This shows that the maximum length set by the TA might not be significantly reduced by long aging plus Peyronies.  Which leads to the point I tried and apparently failed to make, that Peyronies seems to shorten and slim the erect penis via a mechanism different from TA shrinkage.  For the healthy penis "weak erection" can be defined as one that does not bring the penis to its BPSFL, but the post-Peyronies erection might not be weak (in the sense of unrigid or unhard) and yet it might be reduced in size.  Post-Peyronies damage to the TA is more complex than the cellophane-tape-on-balloon mechanical model.  My own Peyronies progression had it going this way and that, ending pretty straight but reduced in size.  A condition of the TA spread irregularly until the TA was uniformly afflicted.  The final state involves no palpable plaque and apparently no reduction in BPSFL. The VED is showing that something now goes wrong during natural erection.  The strong but size-reduced natural erection needs explanation.  And whether corrective or not, VED exercises are enjoyable for bettering the natural erections size-wise if not strengthwise.  


pless

Two different theories for the efficacy of the VED for Peyronies appear in this Board.  1. The VED draws fresh blood into needy tissues.  2. The VED stretches the TA.

The protocols most popular in this Board involve very brief hold times consistent with the first theory.  A VED based on the first theory could even include a reversible pump able to apply positive pressure to the penis after holding the negative pressure briefly. Anyhow these protocols aim at refresh, refresh, refresh.

For the second theory, the VED must stretch the TA more than a natural erection does or it is useless.  According to the second theory the smaller cylinders of the 3-cylinder VED are useless.  The protocol in the study published in the BJUI uses a 1-cylinder VED and long hold times.  (Although that paper mentions modeling it concentrates on expanding.)

I certainly can't judge the two theories or the differing protocols.  Some posters speak of "listening to ones body" and that rings right.  I'm doing one session of about 30 minutes per day.  It's that length because it takes me very many cycles to reach full size in the cylinder.  I've marked one point on the cylinder for full length and another point for length-minus-glans.  My natural erections no longer reach such lengths.  I pump vacuum until I feel not-quite-pain, wait about 10 seconds as that feeling disappears, pump more, etc.  I release vacuum immediately when a single pumpstroke causes slight pain.  These pump-ups take about 45 seconds to about 1½ minutes.  Between them I usually remove the cylinder for about 30 seconds, sometimes massaging the penis.  For the first 10 or so pump-ups the two marked points look inaccessible. But there continues to be growth, maybe 1mm, during the 10 second waits, and at about the 15th pump-up the marks are approached.  At this point the penis provides different feelings. It is like the ache from a very horny hard-on.  Not pain.  The last two pump-ups go to the marks in few steps and hold there for about 30 - 45 seconds.  

It's not suggested as a protocol.  It's what feels right for me, at this early stage of my VED therapy.  The penis looks OK and feels OK during and after.  Yet something has been done according to both theories.    

pless

Old Man: I didn't challenge the 3-cylinder VED treatment.  I only described two theories and said that one of them, the "stretch the TA" theory, would find the smaller cylinders in the 3-cylinder method useless.  This is simply because natural erections (assuming the man has these) stretch the TA more than it could be stretched within the VED's smaller cylinders.  The 3-cylinder method rests in part on a modeling theory which is separate from the two theories I described.  The 3-cylinder method also rests on the "draw fresh blood" theory (as it involves very many very quick cycles) as well as on the "stretch the TA" theory (as it does finally pump to 100% size in the largest cylinder).  The 3-cylinder method is thus a hybrid covering many possibilities.  So it should work in many cases.  I'm trying a 1-cylinder method because my penis is almost straight now, but much shrunk, so modeling seems unnecessary.  

I didn't know there was a clinical trial of 1000+ patients.  When?  Where?  Are its results published?
It would be good if Raheem et al. (BJUI 2010) were superceded because that UK trial was small and short and the writeup was sloppy.

pless

Old Man has removed his post which mentioned a 1000+ man trial of VED therapy for Peyronies to which my previous post alluded.  Perhaps someone familiar with that trial will post its details.  

The 3-cylinder protocol most often recommended in this Board is designed to exploit several different theraputic mechanisms and to work for more men than a simpler protocol could.  But I'm one man, one case, that might benefit just as much from a simpler, 1-cylinder protocol.  Actually I'm in a category of Peyronies sufferers who have emerged with straight enough but reduced size erections.  The Raheem et al. study excluded this category.  I don't know about the 1000+ man trial.  We in this Peyronies category seek evidence that VED therapy will help, and the simplest effective protocol to try.

What I see near the end of my sessions resembles my pre-Peyronies erection and this implies that the Peyronies did not shrink the tunica but rather changed the natural erection process.  Perhaps this is common to the men in my Peyronies category.

What I'm encountering with the VED is that 15-minute sessions can't reach the size that 30-minute sessions can.  Maybe I shouldn't have aimed at reaching full size during these first 10 days, but what's the harm in the method I've adopted?  What of benefit does it omit?  What does it overdo?  Cycling until maximum size is reached now takes 30 minutes.  If next week or some later week it takes 15 minutes or 5 minutes then I can modify my method to stretch the session to 30 minutes.  It's a "method in progress", not a protocol.

A possibly significant difference among VED protocols is once-a-day vs. twice-a-day.  Frankly I dislike the cleanup from a session so much that I must accept once-a-day.  

Norm

I may be missing the boat here. I see much discussion about measurements, marks on the VED, etc. Quite honestly, I don't care one bit about the measurements. I just want to see some degree of improvement to the curvature. And i can see that visually. I have no goal of more length nor girth. I'm satisfied with that. I just want to be straighter. I don't even expect to be perfectly straight, I never was anyway. I guess my expectations are low compared to some of you. But in my case, do I really need to be measuring? Am I going about this wrong?  
Plication Surgery Dec. 2013. Straight Again!

james1947

Norm

No, you are not missing nothing here. You are using VED just to straiten your penis so you don't need to meassure length and girth, you need to see just improvement in the curve.
I am using the VED to straiten, get back length and girth lost to the Peyronies so measurements are giving me the efficiency of using VED.

James
Age 71, Peyronies from Jan 2009 following penis fracture during sex. Severe ED.
Lost 2" length and a lot of girth. Late start, still VED, Cialis & Pentox helped. Prostate surgery 2014.
Got amazing support on the forum

pless

Norm:
Peyronies harms penises in differing ways: curvatures; shrinkage; distortion; pain; impotence; etc.  Also men's tolerances to the harms differ.  We each reckon our situation and look for appropriate therapy.  The VED protocol we choose should be one that is right for us.  
pless

Sargonnas

Pless your VED its the cheapest I have seen and I am from Europe too. Would you reccomend it? How did you the customs thing? It came in a small box? Medium boxes almost always get caught in my experience.

Defintely there seems to be a consensus among men suffering this condition about VED being beneficial and I clearly can see why. I want one.

pless

Sargonnas,
Augusta's Vitality 1-cylinder manual pump unit is intelligently designed and solidly made.  If you have a friend in the US to transship it to you the US postage is $24 - $26 depending on the final package weight.  US e-stores charge unthinkable, huge international shipping fees.  The German Zollamt is strict and made me pay 19% VAT based on the $84 invoice.  Find out what the maximum value for an overseas gift is to Spain.  If your friend declares that value (perhaps after placing an old sock in the cylinder) you might be spared VAT.