Quick paediatric urological advice please

[timetosmile]

DS, aged 4, has always had a fair bit of foreskin skin (quite floppy, but no abnormality).
It's never been fully retractile, and seems if anything to be becoming less retractile as time goes by.
He's generally fit and well, normal genitals.
No UTI/balanitis ever, though a bit of ballooning at the start of a wee and pretty spray-ie at the start but then a good stream.
I'm reluctant to get him circumcised unless really neccessary.
Thanks for any advice

[timetosmile]

Bump? Anyone there.......?

[Acekicker]

If it's becoming less retractable and there is ballooning and spary at the start of a wee, I'd suggest taking him to the docs and get it checked out. GPs see lots of these kind of things and they should be pretty good at assessing if you need referral for possible circumcision or advice on other options.

[Liz79]

I'm here because I took my 16mo to gp with ballooning yesterday, he had a look & said it is phimosis & is writing a letter to the general surgeons to decide if he needs circumcising :( know nothing about it & was shocked when gp said this

[Acekicker]

My son (age 6) was circumcised a few weeks ago. His foreskin was totally non-retractable and after 1 infection he was referred to paeds. The consultant felt that there basically was no chance that his foreskin would begin to retract and said he might have BXO. After the circumcision the surgeon said that the foreskin was completely fused on - so I'm glad we had it done sooner rather than later.

What I'm trying to say is that whilst no-one wants their child to have to go through surgery, if it is necessary then it's definitely manageable (we had about a week of sitting on the sofa watching TV with DS letting it all hang out and the air get to it and since then he's been bouncing around as usual). I'm also glad we had it done sooner rather than later. A 6 year old has little 'shame' in having his bits looked at etc and none of the 'complexes' about it that I could imagine older boys having.

It was pretty clear that my boy absolutely needed circumcising but I would imagine that it's not an operation consultants will recommend unless it is really necessary. The GP and consultant both said to me that normally 1 infection wouldn't be an indicator for circumcision and they'd leave it longer, however given the total non-retractability in my son's case they decided to operate sooner rather than later and I'm very glad they did. I did interpret that to mean though that they're not 'trigger happy' when it comes to the operation, even though it is actually a relatively 'minor' procedure.

Hope this helps/provides some reassurance...