help 3 yo very sore penis

[randomama]

Obviously I have booked an appointment to see the GP in the morning but I am hoping someone might be able to give me an idea of how serious this sounds/put my mind at rest. My (just 3 yo) son's penis is very red and swollen at the end and when we washed and dried it tonight there was blood on the tissue paper. He's in a lot of pain. Any clues?
TIA x

A bad case of thrush? My ds has had thrush recently, it was red on the end and sore for him. We had cream and was told it was fairly common.

Could be thrush, but my ds1 has had a sore willy a couple of times. It turned out he had discovered he could move his foreskin slightly so he kept pulling it and eventually it got really sore and bled slightly. We just had to make sure he left it alone for a few days.

thanks! that's really reassuring. he HAS been playing with it a lot recently - can't keep his hands off it tbh. Great I'm not gonna worry then and will see what GP says.

ds 2 had balanitis (no idea how it's spelt!) and a course of antibiotics cleared it up. It was really red and sore & I think he kept pulling on it as it hurt so much which made it worse. He was only 3 by the way and not 19