Unstable erection after woman-on-top sex injury (suspect fundiform ligament tear)

[need_advice_plz]

The accident:

I had sex with a woman in 2018 (I was 33 at the time - I'm 36 now) who was on top at one point and, annoyingly, seemed to only like riding the last inch of my penis. I kept telling her to be careful but she didn't really listen or understand that it could hurt me.

On another occasion, towards the end of 2018, she was on top again and didn't take me deep enough during sex. I slipped out several times without injury, but eventually she DID injury me when I slipped out she moved down with her body against the tip of my erect penis - all the force from her body weight was directed down my penis for a fraction of a second. I seriously regret allowing her to go on top now, due to her carelessness!

I was in a lot of pain for a few seconds and we stopped sex straight away. I didn't lose my erection, there was no bruising or any visible signs of injury. Something gave way due to the force but I don't know what it was.

I was lucky it didn't "break" my penis and there was no major injury - but something definitely happened. There are several noticeable differences to my penis in terms of support and stability when erect.

Symptoms:

- my penis used to point straight up to my belly button when I lay on my back with an erection. It now points about an inch to the left when erect. There is no sudden bend in the penis itself, it just looks like the base of it isn't supported equally on both sides internally, and so it leaves my body at a different angle

- unless my penis is 100% erect, it is now unstable at the base and I feel it wobble about at the bottom during masturbation. I've never experienced this before. It's not being supported in the normal way

- during sex and masturbation, I have to tense the pelvic floor muscles that cause your erection to point up (think Kegels exercises) in order to increase the support to my penis, otherwise it's so unstable at the base that it wobbles around and is uncomfortable. For some reason, tensing the those muscles temporarily supports my penis at the base and stops the base of it wobbling around during sexual activity. Maybe this is a clue as to what supporting structure was damaged?

- when my penis is just starting to become erect or even not erect at all, I feel a "clicking" sensation at the base, on the left side from time to time. It's like there's a ligament moving over something. It's not painful but it seems to be an indication to me of where the damage occurred. Maybe a tear on the left somewhere?

I can still have normal sex and women don't notice the difference, so this isn't the end of the world but it does make me quite depressed. It hasn't returned to normal and I have given it plenty of time to recover.

Could this be fundiform ligament damage?

I've tried to narrow down the problem by feeling my penis when erect with my fingers, and it seems that it behaves and feels pretty much normal if I grasp it at the base (as low as possible, pushing the tips of my fingers against my body) using my other hand. When I do this, my fingers are supporting my penis the same was as the fundiform ligament should be doing (and used to do, before my accident).

I believe my suspensory ligament is pretty much fine and wasn't damaged, as my erection still happens... but I suspect the fundiform ligament was either partially or completely torn/stretched by the accident, or maybe the ischiocavernosus muscle or another supporting structure was damaged. The reason I suspect the fundiform ligament is that it acts like a sling around the base of the penis and provides support against the type of sideways movement at the base where I now have hypermobility. If I grip my penis approximately where the fundiform ligament is, and try to do its supporting job with my fingers, my penis feels normal again.

I'm going to see a doctor and get an MRI or other diagnostics done soon.

Everything I've Googled just comes up with "broken" penises (i.e. tears of the tunica albuginea and corpus cavernosum, which are the tissues in the shaft that become erect) and that is not my problem. I have no actual erectile dysfunction (otherwise I would have treated it as an emergency and gone to the doctor sooner) but just a type of instability at the base of my penis that isn't healing by itself and is very annoying.

Desired outcome:

This doesn't seem to be a very complicated injury in the grand scheme of things. There was no blood vessel damage and no nerve damage. All that seems to have happened was some stretching/tearing of ligaments which support my erect penis at the base, inside my body. The penis itself seems to have been unharmed by the accident, fortunately. I still get normal erections but my penis is unstable and it's uncomfortable during all kinds of sexual activity.

Questions:

Has anyone experienced similar instability at the base of their penis following a sex accident that caused it to be pushed against the body when erect?

Has anyone had, or heard of anyone having a fundiform ligament injury? I can't find anything about it online but I think that's what I have, or another structure closely related to the fundiform ligament.

[Hidden]

Top of a Google search: bjui-journals.onlinelibrary...

[need_advice_plz in reply to Hidden]

I asked:

"Has anyone had, or heard of anyone having a fundiform ligament injury? I can't find anything about it online but I think that's what I have, or another structure closely related to the fundiform ligament."

The link you provided was for suspensory ligament injuries. There's plenty of information about those - which was why it was top of a Google search when you looked for it.

If you compare the occurrences of the following four terms on the internet, there are no results for suspensory ligament injury, which is why it's so hard to find information on it online:

- suspensory ligament

- suspensory ligament injury

- fundiform ligament

- fundiform ligament injury

That said, I haven't had a specialist check me out yet. It's possible I have the more common suspensory ligament injury - I don't know for sure what's actually wrong yet.

I'm hoping it's the more common suspensory ligament injury rather than the fundiform ligament, because I can't find a single mention of the fundiform ligament ever being repaired surgically.

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[Hidden in reply to need_advice_plz]

I suspect that there are no mentions of repair because of the nature of the fundiform ligament. It is a loose structure so you are unlikely to damage it. I suspect that if you eventually are found to have any ligamentous damage then you are looking at the wrong one. What you describe is more likely to come from a ligament under tension (as per the google search). What made you think of a loose ligament damage - the least likely one to damage? Why not consider the most likely cause of your problem?

[need_advice_plz in reply to Hidden]

I hope you're right but there's a reason I suspect the fundiform ligament.

It didn't occur to me that the fundiform ligament was actually looser than the suspensory ligament. I thought that it surely must be under some tension or it wouldn't be providing a supporting role.

"What made you think of a loose ligament damage - the least likely one to damage? Why not consider the most likely cause of your problem?"

Good question.

I think the most likely cause of my problem would be the suspensory ligament, if you were to only look at the relative frequencies of damage to the two ligaments. It's only when you look at my actual symptoms that the fundiform ligament seems more likely.

Here's an article that talks about symptoms of suspensory ligament damage, of which I seem to have none.

ajronline.org/doi/10.2214/a...

I list three symptoms below:

1) The shaft remains unstable; it does not assume the normal position during erection and tends to slip out of the vagina (doesn't happen to me)

2) palpation of a gap between the base of the shaft of the penis and the symphysis pubis (no obvious gap to be felt)

3) An abnormal angle is noted during erection (doesn't happen to me either, other than the slide sideways angle which is new for me but is still within the range of "normal" for men in general)

On the other hand, I DO have symptoms of instability that don't seem to pertain to the suspensory ligament:

1) base of penis is not supported properly any more and wobbles sideways and up and down when erect, unless extremely erect, which allows it to become so rigid that it no longer bends at the base. The suspensory ligament only supports it from the top, so it would not wobble in every direction if that was the problem (it would flop down more)

2) simply supporting it on either side at the base with my fingers (as is done by the fundiform ligament) seems to restore normal stability! I actually only figured this part out this week. It's been 2.5 years since the accident and it was only this week that I realized all that was happening was it wobbles at the base due to a lack of support. I previously thought the damage was much deeper inside my body - but I now feel optimistic that the damage is quite superficial and easily accessible, as I can make it behave 100% normally again by applying pressure to the left & right of my erect penis, right where it meets my body (as low as possible).

I'll let you know what the specialist says after they check it out properly and do some diagnostics but my money's still on the fundiform ligament right now, based on the symptoms I'm having, rather than which ligament is the more commonly damaged one for men in general.

Guys who damage their suspensory ligament often do things like pull down on it while it's erect. What happened to me was a sex injury involving massive force being applied "head on" to the top of my penis while totally erect. It happened within around a second but I think this force caused my penis to bend in the middle against the fundiform ligament.

It's hard to be sure though - all I knew was that it was biggest accident during sex I've ever had and it really hurt. I'm lucky it didn't cause a "break" of the penis and require emergency surgery.

[Hidden in reply to need_advice_plz]

I look forward to hearing the result of your consultation.

[need_advice_plz in reply to Hidden]

I'll definitely keep you posted.

It's going to be a while but I shall return!

[Rexfelaj]

What happened with this?