Circulation issues have been plaguing me for the past several months, and getting a doctor’s appointment is taking an eternity. As I’ve been waiting, the issue has only worsened, to the point where I am quickly losing sensitivity in my hands and fingers. EDIT: “Quickly” as in over the span of a few days or weeks having cold hands, not hours. If that makes a difference.
As a cis male, this has also begun to affect a certain part of the body that requires good blood flow to properly function. Without an incredible amount of sexual excitement, it remains worryingly cold and lifeless. I’m enjoying what I have left while it lasts, but it would be horribly fitting for me to lose feeling there too before I can even set foot into the vascular specialist’s office.
It’s brutal. It really is. I’m in my early 20s, and this, on top of a multitude of chronic health problems, is hitting me all at once. I’ve never had a partner, but I was always so excited to find one someday. But now, things have just gotten a whole lot harder. (That is, except for one thing.)
I don’t want to lose hope. I’ve already tried that in the past from my other health issues, and it only makes things worse. But it’s kind of difficult to imagine what a relationship looks like without functioning parts. Especially when this doesn’t magically make me asexual. I still want to enjoy some kind of sexual activity, but I’m not sure that I’ll be able to do it in the way that most women who would otherwise be compatible with me are hoping for.
I’d appreciate any kind of hope or encouragement, or just practical advice for what to do if the worst comes to pass. I feel that this is a scenario that I need to be prepared for, because god knows that the medical system isn’t fast enough to do anything except record the damage that has already been done.
Thank you, and I wish you all luck in dealing with whatever fucked up shit has come your way, too.
EDIT 2: You know what? Maybe this isn’t about my junk as much as it is my entire fucking body. “Oh that’s weird, the lack of circulation has spread from my fingers to my entire hand in a few days.” Uh, yeah, you THINK? My feet are turning blue, my hands are going numb, my mouth is getting cold, and I’m worried about THIS? Maybe the commenters telling me to get care immediately have a point. Maybe I’m the meme guy who worries about the economy while a meteor crashes into Earth.
My (kind of) ex has ED from diabetes, and OP you may want to be checked for that as vasculopathy is a side effect. He just got a vacuum pump and ring system. It’s a little awkward the first few times but after that you just get used to it. We don’t engage anymore, but a couple of years ago went to a resort on vacation, and you have to declare all medical devices at customs in your carryon and that was included. That was funny to hear. But honestly it worked just fine and it was really no big deal after the first time or two. Being honest with your partner is important, and this is fairly straightforward once you get the hang of it. Other treatments are cavernoma injections (needle in the peener when you want to have sex), or trying Viagra or whatever which is wildly expensive and doesn’t work for everyone. A vacuum pump and rings is reusable and reliable.
My coworker’s boyfriend has premature ejaculation and is embarrassed by it so they just don’t have sex, and really it’s dumb.
As long as your tongue works
One, what the heck! I really hope you can get an appointment earlier. You don’t deserve this. Can you branch out to look for more places?
Two, you know the answer but it’s still a real fear! Of course there is a person out there who can love you no matter what. A relationship doesn’t have to have sex and there are plenty of other ways to have sex without penetration.
Edit also random thought while you’re waiting you should try to find a Chinese traditional doctor. I feel like male blood flow is something they would be pros at!
Look as I said above this is an emergency please go to the ER now.
But… even if you loose your dick there are lots of disabled people that have love and even kids. It’s more about personality. Believe me a healthy relationship does not depend on penetration. There are a lot of other ways to enjoy and even if you really want it there are implants and technologies to make this possible (believe me my grampanwas 95 when he had an implant because he couldn’t use viagra anymore. )
Edit: It’s important to be alive to have a relationship or sex. go to the er
Something like this happened to me. I am much older however. It wasn’t the exact circumstance but a bad deal none the less. Turned out I had a cancerous spinal tumor that was misdiagnosed repeatedly. Go to the doctor. Be sure your problems are what you think they are. If you’re waiting forever and it gets worse go back. If no one listens find a new doctor.
I had the discs in my neck swollen losing the gap between your spinal cord and the vertebra. I fell and this caused a bruising of my spinal cord. Same exact symptoms. Started slowly, by the time I had surgery I could barely walk due to the loss of feeling everywhere except right around my heart.
Absolutely, find a Dr that will take you serious and figure out what’s wrong.
This was my exact circumstance. The tumor grew into my spinal column and collapsed it almost completely. I lost my ability to walk and had to relearn.
Give up if you want zero chance, or reframe as ‘what’s my next best move’. I only read the title. Dick don’t work? Okay, fuck it. What pieces are left in play?
Many women would prefer a relationship without penetration, for some women penetration can be painful without proper warmup and many men are frankly terrible about it.
This is likely less of an issue than you fear.
Hey brother, get to a doctor.
Also, hands and mouth. I’ve got similar problems. Hands and mouth do wonders
The right partner might expect certain things that are typical, but will love you for who you are. Go to a ER and make them figure out what’s wrong with your circulation.
If you’re in your 20’s experiencing this you should, frankly, check in to an ER. Old guys like me have some similar issues but not as bad as you are describing. Get some help, son.
So, any advice on how to get these guys to actually listen? Not sure this is an American thing, but I’ve had some bad luck with ERs:
I’ve been kicked of the ER after suddenly losing all feeling in my arm (which thankfully came back a day later).
Another time, I had sudden weakness that was bad enough that I lost the ability to stand while in the waiting room. They checked my basic vitals, saw normal numbers, and rolled me out of the place at 3 AM in a wheelchair after accusing me of making up my symptoms.
When I went to the urgent care for this circulation issue (because the tip of my toe was literally turning black) the doctor told me that it wasn’t urgent and set me up with this vascular specialist. He said casually that it might be some kind of heart problem, but I’d probably be fine because I’m young. That was 3 months ago. The circulation in my hands has diminished during that medium-term time frame, which is the worst time scale for degenerative changes to occur, because it’s not urgent enough for most doctors to consider it an emergency, but not long-term enough for regular appointments to catch it in time.
I appreciate the suggestion to seek emergency care, I really do, but I’ve been burned so many times while losing thousands of dollars in the process that it’s not so clear cut to risk going for a medium-term issue. I don’t have much in savings left, and my parents have made it clear that they won’t be of any help. They accuse me of overreacting and saying that I’m completely healthy despite being physically disabled, and that I will be financially punished for seeking care. (Unrelated, but they are also full-throated fascists who believe that the Holocaust was justified, just to make it crystal clear what kind of people I’m dealing with here.)
It seems that my conditions are downplayed because of my youth, and to make matters worse, I had already been diagnosed with small-fiber peripheral neuropathy for completely DIFFERENT chronic pain years ago that couldn’t be explained, so they could write it off as that despite my hands demonstrably being ice cold when they weren’t before.
So if I’m going to do something like this, I need to do it right. I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any.
Get your pcp involved. They should be freaking out if parts of your body are going numb.
Have you been tested for Lyme?
Keep trying. When you visit the ER, you are seeing individual people. Some people are better or worse than at their jobs. Some care more or less, have different biases. Keep trying until you get someone who takes you seriously. Try different hospitals if you can, some are on average better or have ER rooms that are less overwhevlmed. Be insistant that your problem is serious and getting worse.
Tell em if arthritis runs in your family. Try to pique curiosity with family history. That helped me get care when I was younger.
ER is for treating emergencies. If they look into an symptom and it’s not something life threatening or similarly serious, they are just going to tell you to follow up with your primary care physician. Do that. Just because it’s a serious issue for you doesn’t make it a medical emergency, right?
Like if you get cancer, the ER isn’t going to do an emergency operation, they are going to tell you to get an oncologist and even though that’s life threatening for you, you aren’t going to die tomorrow or in the next week so that’s a problem for a specialist not an ER.
You have to work the system. Good luck, fren.
You need to see the same doctor repeatedly, so they can track the progression of symptoms, and document what’s been tried and what the results were. It’s normal for it to take multiple visits to figure out what’s going on and how to treat it effectively. You might send out some emails to doctors near you who have experience dealing with similar issues. Find one you trust and keep communicating with them about what’s going on in between scheduled appointments.
Yes this! Loosing sensitivity is not a “circulatory problem” it’s an emergency. Please go now
OP please do emergency health care! I’m older and have seen people complain of this, I know you say weeks, and not days, but that does not make it better.
So, if your doc hasn’t already discussed stuff like this with you, you’ve got a shitty doc. But, 100% there are treatments for that.
I’m a surgical tech, so my brain always jumps straight to the surgical option - there are probably things to try first, but just in case nothing else works and your vasculature really insists on being a… well, dick; there are still options:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/penile-implants/about/pac-20384916
I’ve been in a few of those surgeries, and it’s literally just putting a balloon in the chambers that usually fill with blood to produce an erection. You fill the balloon manually from an internal reservoir when to get it up; then release the pressure back into the reservoir when you’re all done.
In any case, sexual health is part of health: don’t let social anxiety or fear of awkward or anything like that get in the way.
And if you go the surgical route, FOLLOW YOU PRE AND POST OP INSTRUCTIONS TO THE T!!! I’ve also done a revision of one of those implants cuz our patient didn’t keep himself clean during the immediate post op period, and got an infection that is the stuff of nightmares. Definitely don’t be that guy.
Having an erection on demand button sounds wrought with hazards of it’s own design.
There are definitely risks, hence the infection warning at the end there. Mechanically speaking, it’s pretty simple… think of like a pump action squirt gun ‘super soaker’ or w/e from when you were a kid, except the end of the gun loops back into the tank it pulls from: so you push the mechanism to build up pressure, then pull the trigger to release that pressure.
Instead of pump it’s a button over a one way valve that’s on the reservoir that hangs out in your scrotum like a 3rd testicle. That’s filled with a few mL’s of saline, and when you press the button it squirts the saline into prosthetic balloons that match the shape of your corpora cavernosa - the two chambers that run the length of your shaft that normally fill with blood to enable fun times. Anyway, push the button until it’s hard, engage in fun times, then push another button that’s basically just another one way valve to release all the saline back into the reservoir. Everything is internal - you feel the buttons through the skin of your scrotum.
There are pictures (animated - nothing gory or anything… it does depict a penis and this is a sfw thread, so I won’t direct-post it here, but it’s about as sfw as a picture of a penis can be… high-school health class textbook type of image) in the link I posted down toward the bottom of the page if you’re curious.
I always thought it was kinda cool - we can restore a pretty significant part of someone’s life with just a couple balloons, tubes, and some saline, and it’s not like most prosthetics where we’re replacing something (i.e., total knee replacement uses a prosthetic femoral head and tibial plateau, but before we can place those, we break out a powered saw, and things like a hammer and chisel to cut out the original femoral head and tibial plateau… it’s gory as fuck). The penile prosthesis just kinda sits in space that the body already provides.
I see edit 2 and you ain’t in the ER yet homie!! Get the fuck in there and we’ll talk when you get back if they don’t solve your mystery.
Super briefly, Long COVID can cause clotting shit that a bunch of society wants to overlook, and damage to the erectile tissue can come with unlucky COVID infections as well. Just keep that in your head for the moment.
Now fucking go. All our hope is with you and your future boners.
I am dating a trans woman. Her parts similarly don’t function (but it’s due to the HRT).
I can’t speak on what might help it come back, but I can tell you there is plenty of sex you can do without an erection.
I am assuming you’re straight. (Man only interested in women.) It might be more challenging to find a straight woman that would be open to working with this, but it’s not impossible to find a woman that would love it. The best thing you can do is be confident in who you are, what you have to offer, and your worthiness as a person. (This is sexy no matter your identity.)
If you’re also interested in men, I hear there are some men that don’t use their penis at all. I don’t know a whole lot about that, so hopefully someone else can chime in if you indeed also like men.
I spoiler’d some more graphic descriptions of sex acts, if you’re open to ideas.
sex stuff here
There’s lots of stuff you can do without a penis. The stuff you’ve probably thought of, like oral or fingering. There is also something called tribbing. In your case, this is where genitals would rub together. She might straddle you, or you might get between her legs and grind up on her.
Sex toys are pretty damn great. You can use a dildo, hold it or use one as a strap on. You don’t even need to strap it to your crotch. You could even strap it to your thigh and let her ride that. For people that need the extra mobility, there are dildos with holes in the base you can attach to a handle.
Lastly, there are hollow dildos you can put over your own penis. It might feel affirming to you.
But there is more than just dildos. Vibrators are great. You might know about the regular penis shaped vibrators (vibrating dildos, they can be good), stick vibrators (meh), rabbit vibrators (meh), and wand vibrators (Hitachi type, great!) There are also small vibrators that are really versatile. You can use them alone, or put them in your strap on for stimulation for yourself while you’re penetrating someone with the strap. Don’t be shy with vibrators, they’re great on penises too.
I kind of focused on the partner, but let’s not forget about you. I’m not sure about your numbness, but depending on that situation, you might still find pleasure from oral.
If you haven’t already, you might also explore anal. If you’re straight, it will not make you gay, promise! Always flared base. Look up resources on how to work your way up to something bigger. You have a prostate, which makes anal very pleasurable for some men.
It can be limiting to think of sex as penis in vagina, ends when the man orgasms. It can be so much more! Explore your partner’s body. Watch their body react to your touch. Find out what drives them crazy. Help them do the same for you. End on your terms. When you both have orgasmed? When each person signals they’re done? It’s all up to you.
Good luck!
- Get it checked! I’m not talking about your privates. Get your circulation issues checked! Don’t take no for an answer and if a doctor down plays it, find another. This is very very serious.
- As for sex. if sex is the ocean then the penis is the beach, as humans the beach is the way to the ocean, it is where we do 95% of our ocean activities, we see the beach and the ocean as a one. But what do fish see? For fish the ocean is the whole world and the beach is just where the land is. In this metaphor you can see how blinded humans are to the small part the beach is to the ocean, just like males tend to be blind to how there is so much more to sex than a the penis. As a male I can tell you that I had sexual encounters that my penis did not participate in, they were awesome and satisfying for both parties. Be creative, learn from others that might have already faced this way before you (ie lasbians, males with ed, males with micro-penis, etc) You really can have a great time for both sides with no penis involvement, just open your mind and give it some time.
