I'm 25 and I've been dealing with phimosis. I've never been able to retract my foreskin normally, and it's something I've kept entirely to myself. I don't have anyone I can talk to about this, and lately it's been weighing on me quite badly.
I was never taught anything about retracting my foreskin, so i just left it alone. It wasn't until a few years ago that i tried retracting it. At first i could barely move it and was extremely scared of paraphimosis (i still am). Over 3 years and with the advice of the people here, I have made some progress and got some mobility. When I'm flaccid and use some lubricant, i can retract enough to expose most of my glands, like in the picture but cant go all the way. However i cannot retract it when the penis is erect. There is a tight ring around the glands and the tip of the foreskin is puckered up like a drawstring bag when its forward. Sometimes the underside also seems to fold in and catch when i let the foreskin move forward again.
I haven't done a consistent stretching program. Most of what I've done over the years has just been occasional retraction and some stretching in the shower. There have been periods where my foreskin is much more mobile in some days compared to others. So part of me wonders how much improvement I could get if I actually approached it properly.
Where i am struggling is, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the whole thing. I have a long and puckered foreskin, and I don't like its appearance. I also sometimes have issues with urine getting trapped under the foreskin and causing an odor. I've spent years looking at pictures online and wondering whether my foreskin is normal, worrying about the future and trying to figure out what I'm even supposed to do.
Because of all of this, circumcision has started to feel like the easiest way out of all of this. Part of me just wants to get it over with and not have to worry about my foreskin anymore. I don't necessarily want to lose my foreskin, I'm just at a point where i keep thinking that if i got circumcised then i wouldn't need to worry about how it looks or whether sex is going to be uncomfortable.
But there's one thing that genuinely scares me. I have a history of developing keloids scars. I'm terrified that if I get circumcised, I could develop abnormal scarring on my penis and permanently regret it. But tbh putting aside all this problems i am in a pretty bad place mentally with this right now. Its embarrassing to bring this up and its starting to get overwhelming. Some days i can convince myself that its fine and that i could eventually improve it with stretching. Other days, i just want this over with and make the problem disappear.
I would genuinely appreciate some advice, experiences or even some encouragement. Thank you to anyone who read all of this.