Penis Pain and sexual function

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Don’t know if this has been covered or not but I’ve just noticed today 3 days post treatment that the tip of my penis has become very red and inflamed, wondered if anyone else who has one had a similar experience and what cream etc did you use on it ?

I think it must be in the blast area of the radiotherapy as the radiographers had to move it from one side to the other when doing the planning scans.

Thanks for any replies or suggestions.

Monty

02/08/2025

Just wanted to update this thread and expand it slightly as I can’t find many examples of this subject on the forum, so may be useful for future searches.

The original pain turned out to be a slight reaction to one of the creams I’d been applying and I’d managed to get some of it under the foreskin, this quickly resolved once I took more care.

 

Pre treatment I was warned of several possible and probable side effects including probable dry ejaculate long term, possible loss of erections (ED) in the short and or long term and a probable need to be catheterised during treatment.

 

During treatment, although my pee flow reduced quite a bit and was usually uncomfortable, I managed to escape being catheterised. My bladder flet uncomfortable with only a small amount of fluid in there and I was up at least 4 times during the night and sometimes as much as 6 or 7 times.

I did retain erections until towards the end of treatment but from about half way these were really quite painful and would wake me in the night.

My libido really took a hit during treatment but when I did make the effort there wasn’t any fluid produced and there was a significant stinging sensation down my penis just after the dry ejaculation this stinging faded away quite quickly.

 

I’m now 6 weeks post treatment and have just had my clinical review at the hospital.

I still have a completely dry ejaculate and have been told this will probably not resolve, I don’t have the stinging sensation following ejaculation anymore but do sometimes get a sharp pain at the point of ejaculation or sometimes up to 24 hours afterwards or I just have a general discomfort in the penis bladder / prostate area.

My libido has started to return but seems to be a bit up and down (pardon the pun) and the painful night time erections have returned although the pain is now much reduced but does remain.

My bladder capacity has returned to about 80% of what it was before treatment started, I do have some urgency when it’s full and I still have some discomfort when taking a pee but I’m only up once or maybe twice during the night now so that’s much better.

All this I’m told is quite normal for a male following treatment and the pain has been diagnosed as radiation induced urethritis. I was also advised to use a lube during sex as everything will now be completely dry (and it is).

Hope some of this is useful for anyone about to or going through treatment and I’ll update if or when things change.

Monty x

  • Hello Monty,

    Thanks for the update. The information will be really helpful to the men on the forum, although I’m sorry that you are going through this. There seems to be so much less information out there for men. 

    It’s still such very early days for you post treatment and I hope that as time goes on everything will start to improve. You are still at the stage where the radiotherapy is continuing to work and while it’s doing good things it’s also affecting everything else in the vicinity. 

    I hope you have the date for your scan as also appreciate what an anxious time it is, finishing treatment and waiting to know the outcome. 

    Wishing you well for ongoing improvement and next steps x

  • Hi   

    Thanks for the comments it’s much appreciated and yes I’m finding this bit between treatments and follow ups to be an anxious time so I really am trying to focus on other things.

    I do have my MRI scan date but oddly not the time and although I’ve been told the PET scan should be on the same date I don’t have that confirmed.

     

    Monty x

  • Gosh I completely relate Monty (  ), myself, my 2 daughters & my youngest daughters partner have just done 5 days in London, whenever we arrive somewhere or get off the tube my first question is ‘where's the loo!’ even worse if we’ve had a tipple later Stuck out tongue winking eye