Glans irritated after using skin oil + red frenulum

Hi Neverlosehope,

Many thanks for your (long) reply (and great username btw 😃 ). How is it going now with you? The coconut oil still working?

Diabetes and STDs are ruled out and I have never used soap. I had zero problems in my whole life in this area, till I used the skin oil. Since then, the nightmare has started and is still not over. In fact, it is only getting worse when you see the pictures. These reddest spots started on the location where the glans was damaged the most after using the skin oil, that can't be a coincidence. Since a few weeks, I clean the glans extra good with water after a toilet visit and make sure no urine is left on the glans. It looks like I see some improvement now in the worst spots, it is trying to heal. Let's hope this continues.

The general redness still remains the same. Do you think the constant, general redness of the glans is irritation, or just discolouring due to the skin oil? To me it looks like not really healthy and think there is some irritation going on. My local doctor disagrees and thinks it is only discolouring. Compare it with burnt skin: it looks different, but for your body it's not unhealthy. I doubt her theory in my case.

Can you inform me what kind of coconut oil you are using? Is it a specific one?

My pleasure, I am certain that you will be able to make a full recovery! For myself, it is really going great, I have gone from at it's worst having severe redness, itching, pain and sores to completely healed and back to normal! So I know it is definitely possible to recover from this condition! For the last week I have only applied a little bit of coconut oil to the tip after a shower, and I have been completely symptom free!

As for diabetes and std, I really think that the diabetes is a huge cause of this. Actually I found a paper which established that it was diabetes based biological changes to the tissue which causes this ongoing disease. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150172/. At first I thought there is no way I am diabetic because I exercise everyday but I really think the major change that healed me was switching to a low fat, vegan/vegetarian diet and losing 20 pounds! So even if your doctor said you aren't diabetic it doesn't mean that after a fatty meal you aren't insulin resistant which can cause these symptoms... diabetes isn't an on off switch but more of a scale between insulin resistant -> pre diabetic -> diabetic and I think being anywhere along this process can cause balanitis... so if you have any excess weight to lose, especially around the belly please switch to a low fat diet to reduce insulin resistance and lose all the excess fat by dieting and exercise. Especially a short walk after meals can help with insulin resistance! I think this is the key part of the puzzle in the vast majority of cases of this disease... your body is constantly trying to repair the damage but it can't because the underlying tissue has been changed by the metabolic disease as outlined in the paper I linked!

I agree that your condition seems to have been brought on by contact dermatitis, however the fact that it hasn't healed in so long points to an underlying issue. Cleaning after urination is very important too. I agree with you. The constant redness is irritation! Mine was like this too until it healed... I don't think it is discoloration only.

I am using the one they sell at walmart called Nutiva but all organic, unrefined, cold-pressed virgin coconut oil should work similarly.

Do you have belly fat to lose? I think you should try this first, also is your diet high in fats? It would be useful to track how many grams of fat you have each day, if it is over 40grams (if on a western diet it likely is) then that may be the underlying issue for you. Otherwise, I would attempt to treat it like a yeast infect, with 2% clotrimazole cream + canesten oral capsule (fluconazole 150mg)

Great to hear that you are totally symptom free now, amazing!

The darkest spots are still getting better a bit, still a bit healing luckily. Let's give it a few more weeks and see how it goes. In the meantime I am trying to lose a few kg as you explained in your story. It was already my plan to eat more healthy and lose a few kg of weight (not too much), and after reading your comment there is even more reason to try it.

Regarding the general redness: there is a big difference between your and my story. Your redness started after sexual activity, my redness started after applying skin oil / harsh chemicals. It looks like these chemicals have really damaged the glans permanently. The general redness is exactly the same as 2 years ago, totally the same without any little improvement. The area where the glans is solid (no cracks) looks perfectly pink/purple still after using the skin oil. Only on the places where there are cracks in the glans, the redness started. The oil could penetrate deeply into these cracks and created a burning feeling and redness. Can this also be restored by following a diet or specific creams or medicines? I doubt it. I don't see any improvement naturally in the last 2 years and the frustrating thing is that even doctors are not helping. The only thing they can say is that it looks normal or that it is just discolouring due to the skin oil. It doesn't look normal, there is a big difference in colour between the natural colour (solid part of the glans) and the redness in the cracked area of the glans. Is this really discolouring due to the skin oil or is there still ongoing irritation? Which of the ingredients damaged the glans? Was it only the parfum, or are there more ingredients in this skin oil which damaged it? If this really is irritation and we know the exact ingredients which damaged it, it would be easier to find the answer why there is still ongoing redness I guess. Right now I am still worried about this condition, because I have a feeling that this redness is still ongoing irritation, and scared that this irritation can develop in something bad when it doesn't get treated for many years. Maybe I can try to visit a specialised male genital doctor at a private clinic to ask his opinion regarding this case.

Yeah so I was completely symptom free with the glans looking completely like normal, but then I went camping for a few days, was not able to clean propely, and was eating a high fat diet... the same old symptoms came back! So I think really good hygiene and extreme control over blood sugar levels is going to be important for finally getting free of this condition for good. I am back to applying coconut oil to the glans now and now that I am back in from the wilderness I am going to eat 0 grams of fat for a few days before going back on a low fat (less than 20g/day) and caloric deficit so that I can lose another few kilos of fat and hopefully buy myself a little breathing room. The fact that not a week ago the penis looked to be in absolutely perfect health and appearance for the first time in over a year is very reassuring to me as it shows that the body can heal itself if you provide the right conditions.

I see what you mean about the redness and cracks being caused by a different initial process in your case however I do believe these cracks can heal, as mine were similar but healed totally when I was losing weight on a low fat diet and keeping myself very clean. Try eating less than 20g of fat per day and a caloric deficit for a couple weeks and see if that has a noticeable difference as it did for me... ideally I think we both want to get to the point where we are not applying any sort of creams or oils to the glans and allow it to heal and be healthy naturally. From that article I linked and my personal experience I do think metabolic disease is at the root of the issue, regardless of what initially brought on the irritation something is stopping your body from being able to heal as it should.

I understand your worry but try to stay calm as stress is not the optimal state for healing. If you do go see a doc let me know what he says, but keep in mind that many men are wrinkly or red or have dry skin especially those who are circumcised so to a doctors eye your penis may look about normal, especially since they don't know what it looked like before. Also as you age I think some natural change is expected.

Anyway good luck! Lets keep each other posted and hopefully once we are sorted this thread can be of use to others

It really looks like that good hygiene is very important indeed. In the last couple of weeks I continued to wash it with much water after each toilet visit and it is really helping, it is healing! Not the general redness deeper in the glans, but the dark red spots which developed are now almost gone. Apparently water was the much better choice than using penile creams. See below picture for the results.

I am not sure whether cracks in the glans can heal. I think I had these cracks also when I was younger, and then it is just your natural look. Unfortunately the skin oil can penetrates deeply into these cracks and that is why there is still damage/redness/irritation going on there.

For now, I will wait and see how it develops in the coming weeks. Fact is that most of the glans is still red after using skin oil 2 years ago. If a specialized dermatologist can tell me that this is due to discolouration, no irritation and can't be healed but I don't have to worry about it, then it's fine for me, then I finally know what it is. But till now, I only heard things like that this looks normal/natural and stuff like that, and that is just not true. I still have the plan going to visit a specialized doctor about my case.

I will definitely post the results here.

yeah! Seems like you are making a fantastic recovery! Definitely the hygiene is very important as I learned from going camping... not sure how our ancestors would have gotten by... maybe it is a yeast infection that comes back from poor hygiene?

I have no idea what it could be. Luckily it is still going good, not getting worse again or something. I would definitely advise everyone to always clean your glans with water after a toilet visit when you experience symptoms like these. I know that can be hard, for example in my office there is no water available next to the toilet, you only have a general place in the front to wash your hands and that is a bit annoying in a situation like this. Anyway, I am very happy that it looks like it is healed now in that area. From now on I really make sure that I wash the glans with water after visiting the toilet, to avoid a new breakout. Better safe than sorry. The general redness after using the skin oil is not getting better and I think it is realistic to say that the redness doesn't go away anymore. But never lose hope, maybe one day someone knows the solution, so let's keep each other updated and hopefully we can get rid of it.

Another thing I am a bit worried about is the skin oil. When I applied the skin oil on my glans 2 years ago, also a few droplets fell into my (open) urethra. A couple hours later I felt a bit stomach ache, a bit pain close to my bladder / prostate. Pretty sure that the few droplets caused some irritation inside my body. Skin oil, including things like parfum (which is carcinogenic according to some studies) is not really healthy of course and now I am a bit worried about a higher risk of prostate / bladder cancer. Not sure how realistic that is, but it just doesn't feel right in my mind. Maybe anyone can say something useful about this?

Every problem is just an opportunity to find a solution! After dealing with this condition with varying severity for two whole years I have finally found a cure! Over this time I have tried everything I could think of... many things worked for a while but then the inflammation and redness would come back. Coconut oil helped a lot but didn't fix it entirely. I think there definitely is a connection with blood sugar levels and diabetes for this condition but that may vary case by case and is hard to manage in its own right. However finally after much frustration, experimentation, and research I am so excited to say that I am completely symptom free right now with NO CREAMS, OILS, or inconvenient over cleaning needed. In fact my skin seems to have returned completely to normal, I have not seen it like this for two years now!

Without further ado, the treatment which has worked for me is Olive leaf extract! I am using 1 gram of olive leaf extract in pill form per day as well as doing 4 squirts of an olive leaf and peppermint throat spray (in my mouth - to avoid potential confusion ) each day!

Why does this work? I learned that olive leaf is a traditional herbal medicine dating back to ancient Egypt! It is even written in the bible that "the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine." Apparently everyone except me knew about this herbal medicine... the extract of the leaf has anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties, and is even used as a treatment method for herpes patients who are resistant to typical medicines. I stumbled upon olive leaf after seeing it mentioned as a worming agent (anti-parasitic), followed a few days later by reading a woman's blog in which she wrote that olive leaf throat spray alleviated her urinary tract infection. Some more research ensued, I read a study in which it treated herpes sores topically and decided to give it a try. Lo and behold a few days later and I was positively ecstatic at the results I experienced.

In the end I do not know for certain if my case of balanitis was fungal or viral in nature, but I do know that it is better now that I am taking olive leaf extract, and for that I couldn't be more thankful. It appeared as though losing weight and managing by blood sugar levels along with topical coconut oil helped to drastically reduce my symptoms, but the olive leaf extract seems to have alleviated the infection at the source. I am going to continue taking the extract daily as it seems to have many other potential health benefits and I obviously do not wish to risk having this unpleasantness return. I wanted to share this so that anyone else out there can try out this potential herbal remedy. Hope it helps. I will try to remember to check in here or update if necessary in the future. Never give up, you can find a solution to your problems!

Well I am semi back to the drawing board. I still think the olive leaf extract is helpful but I went kind of off the rails with my diet and sexual activity and the redness came back. Washing up well, applying coconut oil and petroleum jelly and taking the olive leaf extract made it stop getting worse and made it almost better again right away.

This leads me back to the blood sugar/ diabetes angle. I was eating a very strict low fat diet alongside the olive leaf when the condition went away completely, and given that diabetes is caused by fat blocking the insulin receptor site and I have experienced two correlations supporting fat levels in my diet and clearing up/ recurrence of the condition I have to assume that is the main factor at play here, of course the study stating that balanitis is at root caused by diabetes should weigh more heavily than my subjective interpretations.

So now I will go back on the extremely strict diet to get my inulin sensitivity back up, lose some weight and see if that gets me back to completely clear again. It is annoying to be dependent on cream of any kind to prevent the irritation and I am certain there is a way to go on without it (as I experienced it just recently).

Any updates?