Q: I have been having an occasional problem of small hair-breadth cuts on the foreskin of my penis. Normally, I do not have any problem with pulling back my foreskin over the glans penis, when I masturbate. The movement is normally easy and the foreskin is not tight. However, once in a while, these small cuts appear by themselves, and sometimes they last for months. During that time, masturbation becomes painful due to expansion of the skin and hence opening of the cuts. Then they heal by themselves, only to reoccur later. Since the foreskin is not tight, I thought this may be due to dryness of the foreskin and ignored the problem, but it has happened again and not healed for more than a month. Please let me know the best way to treat this... how do I make the foreskin less dry if that is the cause for these cuts? Or is it due to some infection? Please advise, I am in dire need of the same. I am not sexually active yet - I am a virgin. But I do masturbate once or twice a day. I have always been very careful about cleaning my penis and the insides of the foreskin, with soap and water. Could soap be the reason for dryness? I have always treated the penis carefully, but these cuts do not heal sometimes, even if I stay away from masturbation for a week. Hence it is very troublesome these days. Please help!

A:

You seem to be suffering from phimosis. Though the foreskin may not be very tight, the minor cuts, each time the foreskin stretches over the turgid glans, gets fresh. Any cut in body heals with fibrosis, further loosing its elasticity. The foreskin every time will be tighter around the turgid penile head, glans penis. Treatment consists of removing the diseased foreskin ring which is suffering from recurrent insults. Surgery is simple and results long-lasting.

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