Healing BXO Naturally

Merry Christmas to all those out there, BXO sufferers and otherwise. As we count the days remaining in 2014, I'm reminded of what a bitch of a year it has been. On reflection, I can't help but see my BXO as a metaphor for a few other struggles I've had in my life over the past few years. I won't go into the other issues as they are personal. At the time I started to develop BXO, these other issues became apparent. Like BXO, I didn't realise they were problematic at the time. All the way through 2013, I tried to deal with those issues, just like I tried to deal with BXO (before I knew it was BXO), and at the beginning of 2014 I made what I thought was a successful attempt to beat both. However, I was barking up completely the wrong tree, and would discover this in mid-2014. Then I caught onto both issues, and started to treat them both successfully. However, progress was very very slow. And in recent times, I've had a few things occur that have reminded me that

I thought it was time to post some progress shots. Without further introduction: These pics were taken about a week ago, and since then I have undergone some very slight improvements too. That may be down to the fact that I've been using Manuka Honey both day and night over that time. The itching has continued to be very acceptable. It does come and go briefly, but never for more than a few seconds, and most certainly not with the inflammation and redness that I had a few weeks back. It also seems more likely to occur after... how can I put this on a G-rated blog.... certain types of sexual activity. It occasionally hits when the area gets a little damp (if I haven't gone to the toilet and had a chance to dry it out). I think the itching is sometimes the body's response to very minute scrapes, and perhaps a small sign of progress. It's certainly not the detrimental 'step backward' that I once thought it was. When I was covered in thick layers of wh

I am getting daily hits on my blog. That makes me feel amazing. It makes me feel amazing because of the thought that perhaps I'm making a difference for people. Some days, the blog might only get one hit, but that's still one hit from one person who possibly came here wanting help for this horrible disease. It makes me feel amazing that one person out there can benefit from the knowledge I've gained whilst dealing with BXO. I've done this sort of thing before, where I've learnt a lot about something that wasn't documented and shared my learning with others in the hope that those in my footsteps need not make the same discoveries as I have already made. The difference is, those were IT examples. This is a medical example. I have a disease, and typically, when you have a disease you turn to your doctor who points you in the direction of someone can help. The outlook may be grim, but at least you are given the feeling that the profession understands something abo

Recall my previous post where I hypothesised that the reason I had gone through a setback was because of a lack of sleep and excessive amount of stress, not because of a rebound from stopping Clobetasol. I was relatively, but not completely, sure that it was the former. Well I'm pleased to report that, since I wrote that last post, I have not used a single drop of Clobetasol, and have managed to stay almost totally itch-free. I still have my brief moments, but that's when I haven't dried myself for a while. A quick toilet visit and decent dab around with toilet paper will solve that problem easily. I have been sick over the last day or so with a horrible stomach bug, which may have been what my body was fighting when the itching began, although the timing isn't right. I will say, however, that this is at least the third stomach bug I've had at this time of the year in my life, so I know that getting run down does take its toll. At any rate, I'm enjoying sleep

I've had a couple of posts now where I've talked about my setback, and then how I've allegedly solved it but have later found it didn't solve it. First, I thought that Hydrogen Peroxide was the answer. It worked for a little while, but later became less effective. Then I was convinced that Manuka Honey was the answer . It later turned out not to be the case, by the way. I awoke the following morning to an almost unbearable itch. I put some on during the day, and the itch I felt was as though I hadn't put anything on at all. Out of desperation, I tried Tea Tree Oil... no joy there either. I was really getting quite worried at this point. Here I was with a relapse of my BXO symptoms, that had come at me out of nowhere and appeared resistant to virtually every kind of treatment I had used in the past. All of a sudden I almost felt like I did when I realised what I had, but with the previous knowledge of having tried everything unsuccessfully. It was a pretty low day.

I do believe I'm currently in the middle of what I'd call my first flare-up since I started treating my BXO. The itch I talked about in my last post has returned, and with it, there is increased redness on the healing BXO skin. It's not a hideous looking red, but as someone who looks at my penis far too many times a day already, it's not something I'm at all comfortable with. I had thought that Hydrogen Peroxide helped, but it doesn't seem to be doing a lot right now. I also thought earlier that the moisturiser I've used on occasion helped, but again, that relief is only temporary. Eventually, the itch will return and the redness doesn't fade. Today as a last resort (ok.. I haven't yet tried Tea Tree Oil) I tried Manuka Honey on it, and it soothed the itch almost immediately. The redness subsided pretty quickly too. As a test, I tried hydrocortisone, but within about 20 minutes the itch was back, so I took that off and put Manuka Honey back... bing

This disease is awful. But there's one thing that, for me at least, is the worst part of all. Yes, it sucks that it attacks the genitals. It sucks that it causes the impact that it does. It sucks that it takes perhaps the most ridiculously long amount of time to heal out of any disease known to man. And it sucks that affects yours self-esteem and sense of attractiveness and sexiness the way it does. But most importantly, I think, it sucks that nobody seems to actually understand it. Western medicine certainly doesn't, or at least, that knowledge is not common if they do. Natural remedies have some effect, for sure, but they work incredibly slowly. This is not uncommon for natural remedies, but because there's little to no understanding of it in western medicine, there's not really an 'industrial strength' healer. I came to the conclusion that clobetasol was only sightly more effective than the natural treatments I had been using, so have stopped using it. Bu

This is very odd indeed. I'm sick at the moment with what appears to be a regulation case of the common cold. I started getting a sore throat around about midday on thursday (it's saturday night here now). In the few days before, I'd noticed my skin itchier than normal. Nothing alarming. Just noticeable. Then in the afternoon on Thursday I noticed some tiny, almost 'blistery' marks near fingernail on the side of one of my fingers, accompanied by a slight itching. I never made an association, instead figuring I must have touched some substance my skin disagreed with. Thursday night, for some reason, I decided to use a little Tea Tree Oil on my BXO skin, and when I woke up on friday morning, my cold had gotten worse and my BXO skin was feeling quite itchy. I look at it, and it's looking almost a little 'puffy'. Some areas are redder than usual. I assume maybe it was due to some sexual fluids left on it from the previous evening. Wash it thoroughly, then

I've talked about many different treatments on here. I've also speculated about how each treatment might work (attacking vs healing) a lot. But the one thing I haven't really considered is that BXO is thought to be a condition symptomatic of some deeper issue. What's the relationship? Well, if you identify what that deeper issue is and address it, it's quite possible that your body will heal by itself. You might try a range of treatments, and they will work. You'll attribute that progress to the treatments. But in actual fact, had you not used anything at all, you would still have made progress. Some days, I consider the possibility that this could well describe my situation. I'm absolutely convinced that my problem was caused by urine getting trapped underneath the foreskin. Why do I say this? Because I recall some time around January 2011 noticing dampness at the front of my underwear. It was a new phenomenon, and I realised it was coming from small drop

Earlier I had been using moisturiser and trying to look after my skin, but I'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference. Maybe it would if I used it when the entire area was healed, but it's not. I'm at a tricky stage where some of my skin needs healing treatments, while some of my skin needs attacking treatments. It's difficult to balance them out. I've been using Tea Tree Oil again. I started for one reason, and one reason alone - I wanted it to burn. This might sound strange, but there's a reason. Recall me saying earlier that skin that has been wounded and heals seems to heal as normal, healthy skin. While the wound is painful and the inconvenient, what I end up with is BXO skin that heals back to normal in a fraction of the time it would normally take to heal back to the same stage. This is really annoying. I don't want to go cutting myself, and I'd be an idiot to do that given the track record of infections, but I pondered whether I could pro

A picture paints a thousand words, and today I decided I'd share with you the progress I have made on my BXO. First, here's a picture I took back at the beginning of the year. I didn't actually realise what the problem was, so it took me a good six months after taking this photo before I started treating it. A few things to note. Obviously, the BXO skin is very thick and white. That part is a no-brainer. But perhaps more alarming is how tight it is. Look at the width of my thumb and look at how the distance from the edge of the BXO skin to the base of my glans is roughly the same. Also, note the obvious indentation from the phimotic ring at the right.  Here's the identical shot after three months of nothing but natural treatments. Look at how the BXO skin has thinned down a lot, and has some more normal-looking dark patches of healthier skin. Most of those started out as small injuries, and as they healed, the normal skin gradually spread out as the BXO ski

I've had a bit of time to do research lately, and there's a few things I've been discovering. First is how much snake oil there is out there that someone supposedly thinks is the magical cure to LS. I've found everything from "put 100% organic cotton wool in your ears" to "use this frequency-generating therapy, and pick these exact frequencies for LS" to "it's the thyroid" to "it's liver congestion" to "it's an autoimmune disorder" to "it's hereditary" to "it's your diet; cut out dairy, high oxalate foods, sugar, alcohol, wheat, gluten, meat, eggs, or any other food that is edible" to "your immune system is compromised" to "your immune system is overactive". The annoying thing is that, for all I know, one or more could hold the key to my LS. But because there's so much white noise out there on the subject, I'm not about to keep spending money trying di

I've been on Clobetasol now for about 2.5 weeks, and the results are the same as at my last post. Consistent progress, but hardly lightning pace compared to the natural treatments I was using before. This says one of three things (perhaps a combination): The skin I am now targeting is the inner skin, which is much much slower to peel away, so although it appears slow, it would have been even slower without the Clob I'm among the group of people who doesn't really respond to Clobetasol treatment. No negative side-effects, but not massive progress either My skin was already recovering as quickly as the body would allow using the natural treatments, so throwing a more powerful medication at it just won't make anything happen any faster than was already happening I had thought that Clobetasol was the 'holy grail' of medicine when it came to treating BXO, but it turns out it is, for me at least, only a little bit better than what I had been using. This should

As I've said before, I've been to a few doctors for my BXO recently. Initially, I regretted it, but since having time to digest everything I've managed to get my head around it a little. Doctors don't really appear to understand this condition, and what I got was the standard BXO speel. We prescribe potent topical steroids; apply once a day; if the condition doesn't resolve, we recommend circumcision. While I have enourmous respect for my GP, that response I could have gotten from Google, and in fact, I did. The problem was, that comment about circumcision sent me into a spiral of anxiety, so I started searching for more experiences with Clobetasol. Of course, that search turned up a rather pessimistic set of responses, and when you're really worried that perhaps you've been kidding yourself all this time, it's easy to forget why those who had conventional treatment often don't get their condition under control. Then you go and see posts by guys wh

Today I saw my doctor who confirmed my diagnosis of BXO. I've been given some clobetasol to apply once a day, and have a follow-up appointment in a month's time. He also suggested circumcision, which is not an option I'm going to pursue. Today, I've been thinking about why that is. I was circumcised as an infant, and I began my foreskin restoration in early adulthood after wanting a) to reclaim what had been taken from me but, perhaps more importantly, b) to increase my sensitivity. Before I began restoring, I had so little sensitivity that sex with condoms gave me absolutely no sensation whatsoever. So I'm not going back there. The only thing my BXO prevents me from doing is that, and there's zero point in resolving one problem by creating another. My doctor said that, while the symptoms might resolve from the clobetasol, the affected skin might remain thinner and tighter, but circumcision would resolve this. Circumcision removes skin, so will only make the

This blog is about my journey to oblierate BXO using only natural methods, so what I'm about to say may shock some people. Tomorrow, i am going to see a doctor. Of course, there's a story. Two weeks ago, I had a cut on the underside of my penis (thanks to BXO) that got infected, and no natural treatment was enough. Not only that, I had been trying really hard to keep the area clean and dry to prevent it from getting infected, but it still did. I decided that was a sign that I still don't quite have my BXO under control. Regardless of that, an infection is bad news and needs to be treated, so I had my hand forced. I figured that, since I was going to a doctor to lose my dignity and get my infection treated, I may as well talk about my BXO while I was at it. The doctor looked at it, and didn't think it was LS. He said that LS normally eats away at you, and if I had had it for over two years, I'd be in a much worse state than I am. I told him the things I had been

Time to reveal my mystery product. It arrived nearly two weeks ago, and I've been treating myself with it every day since then, so am in a position to be able to speak about its effectiveness. The product is made by Perrin Naturals, and is called "Creme Complete". It's an all-natural creme that many users have found very effective on Lichen Sclerosus. I ordered it at the start of the month, as part of my aim to find faster ways of healing my BXO. Does it work? I believe it does, yes. As you know, I've been using a combination of different treatments, each with its own purpose. Primarily, I've been using Tea Tree Oil. I apply it to the affected area with a cotton bud, then slide my skin forwards over the head. It gives an unusual 'burning' sensation for a little while, but then tapers off. The thing I like about the Tea Tree Oil is that it seems to create peeling on the surrounding areas as well as the obviously white BXO areas. 3% Hydrogen Pero

On the 11th, I arrived home to find my mystery product had arrived. It's not actually a mystery product. It just is to you guys reading this. I'll name it once I know whether it works for me or not. Today is the end of the seventh day of treating myself with it, and I'm trying hard to continue the same treatment as I was doing before as well as using the mystery product. What I was doing was working. The aim for this month is to find ways of accelerating progress, not try entirely different methods. So it's really a case of figuring out how to fit it into my treatment schedule. Does it work? I don't know yet. It's only been a week, and even the treatments I was using that were working didn't really show any great progress after three days. Ask me again after a couple of weeks and I'll be in a better position to say whether it works or not.

After seeing very few visits, I decided today that perhaps there were people who could benefit from reading this blog but didn't open it because it was marked as adult. So, I have turned off the adult setting. I want to be rid of BXO myself, but almost as much as I want that, I want to help others as well. But I can't help them if they don't come to my blog. So as of today, this is no longer an 'adult' blog. That is all

My aim for August is to discover treatments that work faster than what I used for the first month and half. The reason for this should be pretty obvious. One of the pieces to this puzzle, I believe, is Tea Tree Oil. As I mentioned at the end of July, I had briefly experimented with it for a couple of days, before getting scared by the burning of healthy skin, so I stopped. But then I noticed a decent amount of peeling some 4 days later. That was enough to convince me to try again. At the moment, my daily treatment begins with applying a small amount of Manuka Honey to a small wound, and keeping the area dry after urination. In the evening, I then let the area dry out, and do some gentle scrubbing with my finger once the area has more friction. I find I'm always finding skin flaking off at that stage. I then apply Tea Tree Oil with a cotton bud, and cover my head with my foreskin. This creates a slightly warm burning sensation, but not one that I'd describe as unpleasant. Once

This blog is only read by Google at the moment, as it crawls the web looking for pages to index. Nonetheless, there will one day be a time when people read this blog for information, and I suspect, when that happens, at least some of you will ask this question: Why do you call it BXO and not Lichen Sclerosus? It's a good question. Lichen Sclerosus refers to the skin condition, just like eczema refers to a skin condition. Lichen Sclerosus occurs both in women and men, and can occur on any part of the body, but is perhaps most awkward when it occurs on the genital area. You could rightly argue that, if a person has eczema, it's always called eczema, no matter what gender the patient is. Whether a man gets eczema on his penis, or a woman gets it around her vulva, it's still called eczema. And that's true. But here's the kicker. Men and women aren't the same. We learn that as preschoolers, right? We're not referring to Lichen Sclerosus on a man's arm v

For a little while, I've known this but today, I clicked onto the significance of it. BXO skin is prone to cracking, and when it gets injured, can take a long time to heal. I put this down to the physical stresses that are placed on the wound due to the lack of elasticity in the surrounding area. Around the edges of the wound, where wounds normally heal first, the tight BXO skin gets pulled on the most, resulting in undoing a lot of the healing. I've had some wounds where the only way to let them heal is to abstain from any kind of sexual activity until they did. My most recent one, I abstained for 6 days and it healed, but before that, it had taken over 4 weeks and still hadn't healed. When you get these kinds of wounds, something interesting happens. They heal, but they heal as much more 'normal' looking skin, that is wrinkled and has elasticity that the BXO skin doesn't. I have many areas like this. I once thought the problem was that the red was either s

Tomorrow marks the end of July. I began consciously treating my BXO naturally halfway through June, and after making slow progress decided to set the expectation that I would use July as nothing more than a month where I understood how long this will take to treat. This is my update. I believe, although I'm not entirely certain, that I discovered about halfway through this month that I had BXO over most of the glans as well as the inner foreskin.Since then, I've been treating that as well, with some visible progress. So, what have I learned this month? Soaking with 3% Hydrogen Peroxide does seem to encourage peeling. I try and do this for an hour a day, sometimes twice a day. The most healthy inner skin seems to be responding really well to this. When I say 'most healthy' I mean the skin that has BXO on it but is the least dry and hard. Manuka Honey is great for healing. This is useful for wounds that come from peeling, but more importantly, as a way of helping

This week has been a bit of an up and down week. Fortunately, it ended with an up. It began with me trying baking soda as a treatment, since i read about it on another self-treatment for BXO site. For some reason I'm not quite sure, it made me get wet under the skin. This made the BXO skin wrinkle a lot, and turn very white. That was fine, except it didn't peel and stayed white for a few days afterward, making me feel like I'd actually reversed some of my progress. I then began to question whether I was actually achieving anything, and should just bite the bullet and go and see a doctor. Fortunately, someone slapped me into shape and made me realise that this is a slow ailment to treat and I just needed to be patient. The reason I tried the baking soda was that I had began to notice nappy rash powder was no longer working as well. Baking soda was a bit of a fail (perhaps if I'd persevered it might have done more), and I tried Tea Tree Oil, which caused a lot of pain

I tried using some lemon juice as an acid peel a couple of nights ago, but haven't seen any peeling. I didn't think I would, since I didn't really feel any kind of stinging or see any redness afterwards. They say to give it 2-3 days to notice peeling, but I just have a feeling I'm not going to. Over the last week, I've been at home on leave from work, so I've been wearing boxers and keeping my skin back as much as I can. This morning, I started to wonder if the peeling had stopped, as it wasn't so noticeable, and decided to apply talcum powder. The very first thing I noticed was how much peeling you can see with the powder that you just can't see without. It makes the edges of the peeling skin a very apparent white colour. It's good to know progress is still happening. The other thing.. While I know it goes against the subject of this blog, I'm trying applying a small amount of hydrocortisone to a small area. There was a study done where they

Lately, I've been considering the possibility that, simply by keeping my penis and affected skin as dry as I can, all the other treatments I'm using are simply aiding the peeling process. I've tried talcum powder, Manuka Honey, Hydrogen Peroxide, and nothing (simply keeping it dry and keeping the foreskin back as much as possible) and it really feels as though the progress occurs at the same rate. The only thing that I have done constantly is to ensure it stays dry at all times. There are two things that cause a penis to get damp under the foreskin. Urine, and sexual fluids. Men's toilets very often have urinals, and these never have toilet paper by them. Some men can clearly get away without having to dry themselves off - perhaps it's how they hold their foreskin and/or shake afterward. Perhaps it's to do with how much they 'drip' afterward. I don't know. I do know, however, that dampness appears to be bad for me. Sexual fluids are pretty well u

Since I've built up a bit of knowledge over the last month, I figured I'd share some of it in posts, rather than attach it to 'progress updates'. Today I wanted to talk a little about peeling. BXO doesn't heal by just reducing in size; that skin has to go somewhere. From what I can tell, western medicine calls it an inflammation of the skin, and recommends a powerful topical steroid as an anti-inflammatory to counteract the condition. I actually think of BXO as more like a callus. Perhaps, in dermatology, a callus is classified as an inflammation of the skin as well. But when I read the word 'inflammation' and 'recommended treatment is a topical steroid' I expect to see an inflammation with an increased vascular component (eg, skin that is redder than usual). BXO is the opposite. A well-developed case of it, you can scrub with a pumice stone and feel absolutely no pain. Try that on a red inflammation, and you'll irritate the heck out of it. O

I haven't quite started this blog at the beginning of my treatment. I've started it after one month of natural treatment. When I initially realised that I was suffering from BXO, I got really worried about what it meant. I tried some of the natural treatments I'll be discussing here, but the speed at which they were working got me really worried. Then, I started to see results so I tried to accelerate them because I was so anxious. That act only caused injuries. What I did, in the end, was make a date in my calendar 3 weeks in advance to go and see a doctor. I even booked leave from work for that time. If, after that time, my natural treatment regime wasn't showing progress, I would have gone to see a doctor. It would potentially have been a hellish 3 weeks, but I was prepared to go through with it. I only needed that appointment for about one week before I decided I was happy with my progress and cancelled. After I self diagnosed, I scoured the web for a people'

Hello to all readers. This is intended to become a diary and also a resource for those following me. I am a sufferer of Penile Lichen Sclerosus, who is choosing to treat it naturally. I'm 35 years old, and was circumcised in my infancy. About 10 years ago I decided I wanted to restore my foreskin naturally, which I did. I reached the point where I had enough skin to almost fully cover the glans when flaccid. Those who go through restoration notice changed in their penile tissue, mostly as a result of it no longer being exposed to the elements. The skin thins, changes colour, and becomes more sensitive. So in all the changed that I experienced as a result of restoration, what I missed was that my skin was changing colour for all the wrong reasons. My skin was whitening because of what I've only recently figured out was BXO. BXO stands for Balanitis Xerotica Obliterans. The english translation of this means "Balanitis that obliterates any kind of erotic experience"