SENSITIVITY

Sensitivity alterations are very rare, although it is possible that transient deficits may occur after surgery as a consequence of inflammation secondary to surgery. In any case, definitive lesions of the penile nerves are inabitual.

In the penis we differentiate between erogenous sensitivity and tactile sensitivity. Each of them is determined by different nerves that enter the penis from its base close to the prostate. The dorsal nerve of the penis is in charge of the erogenous sensitivity, it is a thick nerve and can be seen by transparency under the superficial layers of the penis. In the case of the nerves that conduct tactile sensitivity, they penetrate through different levels until they reach the skin.

When we perform penile enlargement surgery, we are close to the dorsum of the penis where the nerve that collects the erogenous sensitivity is located, although it is deep enough in the body of the penis so that its injury is very infrequent. In fact, in male to female sex change surgery, to create the clitoris of the trans woman, we release the penis from the pubis and dissect the entire dorsal nerve of the penis to obtain a tissue composed only of the nerve and blood vessels that carry blood and tactile and erogenous sensitivity to the portion of the glans penis that we use to create the clitoris.

This clitoris that we create from the glans is able in a high percentage of patients to allow reaching the orgasm. This gives us an idea of the power of the dorsal nerve of the penis that includes mainly erogenous elements, but also tactile sensitivity in its bundles, and that even in cases in which we perform a direct surgery on it we do not have compromise in its transmission of impulses.

Certainly, in any surgery the main risks come from supervening complications that require urgent actions, which must be applied quickly. In the case of penile enlargement, the most important are the bleedings in the area near the base of the penis and in this case we may have to perform urgent and potentially harmful procedures that may damage these sensitive structures or the urethra itself if the bleedings occur in the posterior region of the pubis. Even in these cases, complete injury is infrequent, and sensitivity is usually recovered with time.