I just thought I would post my experience with getting from soft to hard and using injections. 3 months after surgery my surgeon finally responded directly to my question " did you manage to spare the nerves at all" with a NO! Up to that point he had always replied with vagaries like to soon to tell if it has worked and initially "that's not a question you should be asking yet"
Anyway once I had the bad news I was at least in a position to stop wasting my time with Viagra and the pump in the hope that life might be discovered in the old man and push for an appointment at the ED clinic. Unfortunately this took some 4 months to come through, so in the meantime having been advised by my specialist nurse that the first treatment would be Vitaros, I proceeded to order a pack from an internet pharmacy (Yes, I know you have to be very careful! I checked their Pharmacy registration number against the UK database to verify their authenticity first) Well what a let down - literally, a slight swelling followed by an ache and the swelling lasted 20 mins, the ache over 2 hours.
Buying the Vitaros though proved to be the best waste of money ever as when I finally got to see the ED specialist I was able to say that the Vitaros was no good, so with that the specialist said the best thing for you is the needle. At this point I was ushered into the treatment room where thank goodness there was my own specialist nurse moonlighting in the ED clinic. He gave me the necessary advise and then it was down to "now let's see how you cope with a needle" and then horror of horrors the specialist came in saying do you mind if I watch I've never seen how John handles this part of the treatment. A bit surprised I said yes, after all I didn't have much he hadn't seen before.
So, I sat on the chair, pants around ankles with an audience of 3, The nurse, the specialist and my wife. Whilst I was ok with this unfortunately the star of the show got stage fright at this point and tried to disappear into the innermost recesses of my groin (a bit like a frightened snail) So, it was down to me with shaking nervous hand try to coax the little fella to a size where I could push the needle in. I did and I felt proud! It was only a small injection 2.5mg of Caverject which caused a slight rise and proved that I was able to "do the deed" and I was sent on my way with a prescription to try it out in my own time and the instruction to start with smaller doses and increase until I got the desired result.
Well, I did and it works. 10mg does the trick but I accept I will never be back to pre-op performance but, just having the knowledge that I can if we want has helped with the mental loss of worth and manliness that so many men seem to experience.
I now use my pump before injecting as I find that by increasing the size a bit makes it a lot easier to see a good place to inject, it also helps a bit with the overall size as I did lose a bit post op, doing this does increase the chance of a bit more bruising around the injection site but so what? it works for me. Downside is 2 hours plus erections and the aching which everyone seems to describe, my solution 20 minutes on a cross trainer! it usually speeds up the subsidence. I am really interested in the idea of using medication containing pseudoephedrine to reduce the effects and will be giving that a try very soon.
Mike