I received an urgent message for help today from a young man who had received a Prince Albert piercing a few days prior. He wrote:

Hi my name is D., I am writing to you because my girlfriend received a VCH from you and highly recommends you. I just received a Prince Albert piercing on Friday March 19, 2011. I stopped bleeding the next day but, yesterday I noticed that I was extremely swollen on my foreskin. It hurts a bit. Not really sure what I should do because the person I went to is currently on vacation. Can you give me any tips on how to make the swelling go down?

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read my email.

I asked him to send photos, which he did.

Upon seeing the pictures, I advised him to head to the Emergency Room immediately. I recognized the condition called paraphimosis--swelling of the foreskin.In his case it was caused by the foresking being retracted for too long. Sometimes the fluid build-up needs to be drained before the foreskin can be replaced.

About his visit to the ER, he said:

Once again thank you. The doctor just pull my foreskin back in place. It was more pain than the piercing. But he said that I will be fine just not to pull it back until the swelling goes down.

He explained what happend:

What happened was, on Sunday (3/20/2011) I pulled it back to clean it and some how forgot to place it back. From then on it just swelled up a little every day and last night it swelled in double.

My girlfriend wanted me to tell you she received her VCH from you last year while you were in Texas and is in love with it. And tells everyone that they have to get pierced by you.

Once again thank you for all your help in saving my penis :)

I didn't want to scare him, but unresolved paraphimosis can result in loss of part of the penis! It is crucial that jewelry worn in any piercings on men with foreskin does NOT prevent the tissue from resting in its natural position. More commonlly this could be caused by an ampallang or apadravya on a man with a large size differential between flaccid and erect states. A long barbell that prevents the foreskin from covering the penis head is dangerous!

Here's a message from another man who experienced paraphimosis:

Hi Elayne:

I recently got a prince albert piercing. I have a foreskin which normally covers my glans. When I got the piercing done the foreskin pulled back. I always wake up with an erection for no apparent reason, guess I'm just made this way. Anyway the next day my foreskin was swelled up like an inner tube. I asked the piercer if this was normal and he said he had never come across this before and offered to remove the ring and give me a free re-piercing if it didn't go down. After two days of being swolen and erect I began to worry a little. My glans was twice its normal size when erect. I thought it was some sort of blister like a mouth ulcer and tried bonjella and savlon to reduce it.

Anyway I decided to visit my local A&E department at the hospital. I took a photo so as not to let everybody else know my problem when I explained at reception. After a four hour wait I finally got a urology nurse to look at it.  She donned some rubber gloves and grabbed my penis behind the foreskin and flipped it back over the glands giving me instant relief (a womans touch). She said it was a Stricture and I was not to get excited for a few days to let the foreskin get back to normal.

What a relief I can tell you.

My response:

What you had there is termed paraphimosis, and it will result from keeping the foreskin retracted for an extended/excessive period of time. 

You're lucky she was able to do that for you as other men have had to have an aspiration procedure in which a needle was inserted to draw out excess fluid.

Thanks for sharing your story and photos. Glad you're feeling better!

Side note: be careful with savlon--it is very strong and not suggested for use on piercings.