[vc_empty_space height="-5px"]
a
Alienum phaedrum torquatos nec eu, vis detraxit periculis ex, nihil expetendis in mei. Mei an pericula euripidis, hinc partem. [vc_empty_space height="10px"]
[vc_empty_space height="20px"]

Call us (914) 400 1915

[email protected]

Ask Marilyn – Stop the Steroid Cream!

by
Ask Marilyn, Blog
April 11, 2022

The penis advice columnDear Marilyn:

I read your response to Katherine in Canada in which you said the doctor was wrong to prescribe a steroid to retract a boy’s foreskin when it was likely that the boy had a yeast infection. The question is timely because I’m facing a similar situation with my fourteen-year-old son, whose foreskin has not yet retracted.

Several weeks ago, my son began to feel a burning sensation when he peed and he wasn’t able to urinate much. We went to his pediatrician. We thought it was a UTI, but the pediatrician noticed an irritation on the tip of his penis, so she prescribed a topical antibiotic and an oral antibiotic. Neither worked, so we were referred to a pediatric urologist.

The urologist said that the fact that he couldn’t retract the foreskin could be the root of the issue. Then, without warning, she pulled his foreskin off his glans. I didn’t know what she was doing until I heard my son scream. I couldn’t believe it! Doctors tell you that it’s going to pinch when they give you a shot, and this was much worse.

The urologist prescribed a steroid for my son to use on his foreskin, and since using it he has been able to pull his foreskin further back and clean better. His pain and the urge to urinate has subsided a little bit.

One of the doctors also suggested that because my son was experiencing constipation, his full bowels were pushing on the walls of his bladder and that may have caused some of the discomfort, too.

My question after reading your response to Katherine in Canada is whether or not my son should continue to use the steroid. He’s still not 100% better. What can I do?

— Leslie, Connecticut

Dear Leslie:

I’m happy to know that you kept your son intact. It won’t be long until he understands you’ve given him a wonderful gift. In the meantime, there’s an easy solution to your son’s irritation. A reddened foreskin is usually caused by yeast overgrowth; some soaps, shampoos, bubble baths, or chlorine in pools or hot tubs can disturb the balance between the normal bacteria and yeast that live on our bodies. Antibiotics also can kill healthy bacteria as well as harmful bacteria, so it is counterproductive for a doctor to prescribe antibiotics to heal a reddened foreskin, unless there are other indications an antibiotic is needed.

You can treat yeast yourself by restoring the body’s healthy bacteria. I recommend you purchase a liquid probiotic (acidophilus culture works well) and have your son apply it six times a day. He can pour a tablespoon or so of the liquid into the palm of his hand, hold it for a moment to warm the solution, and then dip his foreskin into the solution and use his fingertips to rub the liquid onto the affected area. He doesn’t need to retract his foreskin because the bacteria will multiply and fill whatever empty tissue there is. You should notice an improvement in three days

You also asked about whether your son should continue to use a steroid cream. The doctor prescribed a steroid to prematurely retract the foreskin, which I’ve already said is not necessary when treating excess yeast. Your son should stop using the steroid cream and let nature take its course. His foreskin might tighten after steroid treatment stops, but the foreskin will loosen up with time . (Some men find their foreskins do not retract fully until their mid-twenties because men do not complete their sexual development until then.) Right now, as long as your son is urinating normally, he doesn’t need to fuss with his foreskin.

To prevent a yeast reoccurrence, don’t use cleansing products that harm good bacteria. If your son swims or uses hot tubs, have him apply non-petroleum jelly on his foreskin prior to going into chlorinated water. After swimming, he should shower to remove the chlorine from his body and then gently wipe away the protective cream from his foreskin.

I’m sorry you were misled by your doctors. As more and more boys are kept intact, health professionals need to learn to respect the foreskin and it treat it properly.

— Marilyn

Related Posts

Marilyn

Marilyn Fayre Milos, multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and advocating for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy, has written a warm and compelling memoir of her path to becoming “the founding mother of the intactivist movement.” Needing to support her family as a single mother in the early sixties, Milos taught banjo—having learned to play from Jerry Garcia (later of The Grateful Dead)—and worked as an assistant to comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, typing out the content of his shows and transcribing court proceedings of his trials for obscenity. After Lenny’s death, she found her voice as an activist as part of the counterculture revolution, living in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, and honed her organizational skills by creating an alternative education open classroom (still operating) in Marin County. 

After witnessing the pain and trauma of the circumcision of a newborn baby boy when she was a nursing student at Marin College, Milos learned everything she could about why infants were subjected to such brutal surgery. The more she read and discovered, the more convinced she became that circumcision had no medical benefits. As a nurse on the obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, she committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing a consent form. Considered an agitator and forced to resign in 1985, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Milos edited and published the proceedings from the above-mentioned symposia and has written numerous articles in her quest to end circumcision and protect children’s bodily integrity. She currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.

Georganne

Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation’s most influential organization opposing the U.S. medical industry’s penchant for surgically altering the genitals of male children (“circumcision”). Under her leadership, Intact America has definitively documented tactics used by U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities to pathologize the male foreskin, pressure parents into circumcising their sons, and forcibly retract the foreskins of intact boys, creating potentially lifelong, iatrogenic harm. 

Chapin holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, and a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. For 25 years, she served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mid-career, she enrolled in an evening law program, where she explored the legal and ethical issues underlying routine male circumcision, a subject that had interested her since witnessing the aftermath of the surgery conducted on her younger brother. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in 2003, and was subsequently admitted to the New York Bar. As an adjunct professor, she taught Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace, and Bioethics in Dominican College’s doctoral program for advanced practice nurses.

In 2004, Chapin founded the nonprofit Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality, a company that designs software and provides consulting services designed to reduce administrative complexities, streamline and integrate data collection and reporting, and enhance access to care for those in need. In 2008, she co-founded Intact America.

Chapin has published many articles and op-ed essays, and has been interviewed on local, national and international television, radio and podcasts about ways the U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profits over people’s basic needs. She cites routine (nontherapeutic) infant circumcision as a prime example of a practice that wastes money and harms boys and the men they will become. This Penis Business: A Memoir is her first book.