Irritant Contact Dermititis on Penis

[supra182]

I made my own lubricant that contained water, aloe gel, hydroxyethylcellulose, carageenan, citric acid, ascorbic acid, lactic acid, potassium sorbate and hyaluronic acid.  The ph is around 5. I used it roughly 3 times and the last time I used it with my wife it gave me a rash that you can see in my profile. I was initially prescribed hydrocortisone 1% for a few days but it did nothing. Then my PC prescribed me triamcinolone 0.1% for 4 days and it pretty much subsided for 5 days. Then I took some ibuprofen and tylenol for a fall I had at soccer and I woke up one morning, rubbed my erection on my sheets a little too hard and it came back.  I tried the triamcinolone 0.1% for another week and it did nothing this time. Then my dermatologist tapered me down to hydrocortisone 2.5% for 2 weeks and that did nothing. My glans is very sensitive (especially the tip of my urethra and the top mushroom part of my glans) and for the first month I couldn't even wear clothes. I've been babying this thing but it isn't healing very quickly. I'm currently on the 8th dose of a 8 time dose of 150mg fluconazole and it has brought down my redness and swelling. I do have all the symptoms of a candida overgrowth in my system (itchy scalp, athlete's foot, ringworm on my butt, toenail fungus) and I took the candida spit test and it appears I fail that every time. My whole glans feels very full and swollen and is very sensitive. It hardly ever itches and doesn't really hurt at all, it is just always reminding me it's there. I believe the urethra must be swollen on the inside as well because there is a little red ring around the pee hole that is exacerbated whenever I shower or have sex.  I ordered some Suregel and am hoping the benzocaine can give me some relief on tough days but I'm toughing through this until my body corrects itself.  I should mention that my glans does get shiny and red and my pee hole is pretty wide open when I have an erection (I imagine from the swelling).  Thank you for reading and let me know if you can help in any way :)

[AnnieBrooke]

It sounds like you've put a lot of stuff on a sensitive area and then put more stuff on when the first stuff didn't help. Have you tried just rinsing it regularly in a saline solution (a couple of tablespoons of salt to a gallon of water) and leaving it alone, but in the meantime also changing the kind of laundry soap you use to something really mild (like made for babies' clothes), and deleting sweets from your diet, and taking a good multivitamin? Those would reduce the possibility that your wash method is causing the contact dermatitis of the area now that it's sensitive, or that your diet is helping you stay inflamed at the slightest provocation,  or that a vitamin lack or imbalance is increasing the sensitivity.  

[supra182]

Hi Annie, thank you for responding! I have not tried rinsing it with a saline solution yet. I'm going to give that a go.  Should I do that every time I use the bathroom as well? I currently use Tide free & gentle but I add bleach and essential oils to every load so I imagine that may be causing some of my irritation. I just found some Baby laundry detergent in our basement made my Aldi that is hypoallergenic and phosphate free so I'm going to switch over to that for now. I have been on an anti-candida diet for just over a week and can't tell if it is helping a whole lot yet but I'm sure that takes time. No I have not been taking a multi-vitamin but I am going to pick one up tomorrow. I really appreciate your feedback and feel free to reach out to me if you have any other suggestions. I'll keep you posted how these work! :)

[AnnieBrooke]

It wouldn't hurt to rinse after you use the loo each time. It sounds like the whole area is sensitive so it wouldn't hurt to be cautious and stay super clean (but not using any more creams, lotions, or gels directly on the skin there because they can set things off too). If the continual rinsing helps (wash your towels in the baby detergent, too and pat yourself dry), one thing that might be going on is sensitivity to the acidity in urine. (Guys do sometimes have a last drip or two that comes rolling out and gets absorbed by the underwear, after all.) If your skin is challenged already, having it next to the sensitive skin won't help, and rinsing might.

Anyway, I would guess (and it's just a guess) that you really just have gotten the whole area worked up, and you need anything that touches it not to have bleach, essential oils, creams, etc.; try to stay calm and just leave it alone. There are even baby body washes you can try. Also pay attention to the fact that sugar in the diet is a general inflammatory, and probably if there is a challenged area, being generally somewhat inflamed will show up there.

I'd also wonder about allergies, but it doesn't sound much like it if you had such a clear trigger in the first place.

If things start to work, try hard not to tip the balance back to another situation where your reaction is hair-trigger and inflammatory.

Good luck!

[AnnieBrooke]

And for heaven's sake, stop concocting things -- you would have done better with plain olive oil than with the lube you devised, for example. Also, Tide Free & Gentle is intended to be "free" of pretty much exactly what you say you add to it, and therefore "gentle" to sensitive skin. If you've been doing this because you are obsessive about chemicals or germs, rinse your laundry twice to remove any residue, and dry your sheets nice and hot to be sure to kill any germs. You'd have to be a biochemist that specializes in what works best with the human body to do better than the professionals. Try to trust that things marked as hypo-allergenic, or mild, or natural, or for use with babies. They're demonstrably safer than you mixing stuff in your home lab, as you've found from your own experience.

[supra182]

Yes I am going to rinse with salt water everytime I use the restroom now! I do have quite a bit of dribble that comes out after I go and I imagine that has been irritating me all along. I have been using coconut oil recently when we have sex but that is all I have been using. I don't put soap or anything else on it. Since I'm cutting out sugar for the most part, I imagine that should help with my urine too. I absolutely gave up making anything to put on my penis because it has made me absolutely miserable for the past 2 and 1/2 months. I was mostly adding bleach and essential oil to the laundry because I like the way it smells and yes I figured it wouldn't hurt getting the clothes a little cleaner. I am going to strictly use the Baby laundry detergent for now and see if that helps and wash everything on warm instead of cold to help with the germs.  I did order the Suregel and was contemplating ordering the Terrasil as well to see if that would help rebuild my skin barrier and microbiome.  I hope that doing all these things brings my swelling down and allows my body to heal it on its own. :)

[AnnieBrooke]

Isn't Terrasil an anti-fungal, like for jock itch? In what way will active anti-fungal ingredients help your sore skin if you don't have jock itch? Give it a rest and see what happens.

[supra182]

Yes it was my thinking that the Terrasil could help if some strain was immune to the fluconazole that I took.  So a lot of my symptoms are pointing to irritant contact dermatitis with urethral syndrome.  My whole urethra is definitely inflamed especially deeper into my penis because there is a very uncomfortable feeling inside that isn't pain but the best way to describe it is whenever you have a full bladder and you are driving in a car and hit a big bump.  That feeling is what I have been feeling in addition to the tip of my urethra being inflamed. I have tried attaching pictures but the server isn't working for some reason.