I've been making progress on NoFap since February, I went down from PMO 3-4 times a day, to maybe once a week at most(and had some streaks of 3-4 weeks in between). I'm continuing to better myself and one problem that really bothers me is that I have these callused(thickened) hypopigmented areas on my penis from friction from where my hand used to sit. I had these for the past 7-8 years and I saw a bunch of doctors (dermatologists, urologist, general medicine) and I've been given steroid creams, fungal creams, anti inflammatory creams, etc. The steroid creams improved the irritation but I stopped them due to noticing early signs of possible skin thinning. I recently saw a very reputable dermatologist who told me to throw the creams in the trash and only use petroleum jelly along with stopping the friction(it seems like I have to go much longer than a month). I've been doing this for a couple days now and wanted to ask if anyone experienced anything similar? All throughout this process I have come to realize just how dependent I have become on PMO. I've realized that I used it as an escape to escape from my emotions/problems.
I have the same issue I believe. For me the head is kind of a red and purple mix. It's sensitive to touch and hurts a little when masturbating. I used to masturbate using only spit, now unless I use lotion I cannot do it. I do not know when this happened to me, possibly when I used to take drugs and masturbate for hours at a time. I think the best answer would be applying lotion on it at night and not touching it. This will take a long time to recover friend, I remember I went 4 months once without PMO and still was suffering from this. I would imagine this could take up to a year to see real results.
That does sound like the same issue I am having. Were you moisturizing at all during those 4 months? The dermatologist told me that part of the issue is that since the skin barrier is damaged, if it is not kept constantly moist, it will heal much slower as the top layer of the skin cells can die off.
I did not moisturize at all, but it definitely was better off than before. I have started to gently rub lotion around the head before I go to sleep, I do believe it has helped. I think I will take before and after photos to see how the healing progresses over time, that way I will be able to give courage to those suffering like us when it does heal.
