18 months and my device has broke the elastic bands, so now looking the mantor options.

It has served me well.

Just put it on and trying to adjust to the difference from my previous devices.

TL;DR: current foreskin expansion methods and devices are inefficient but there are some obvious ways to improve them and innovate. Depending on your CI level, devices could be killing your gains (sorry!). And you really need to measure properly to know how effective your method is.

I've been thinking of writing this for a while but was inspired to take the plunge by this recent post by u/Dracaerys2a and the discussion in the comments, e.g., from u/Agile-Necessary-8223 . I've kept it simple and visual to keep it accessible for a broad audience.

It seems that there is little awareness of or discussion of skin expanders already being used to grow penile skin and structures successfully, and at similar rates to skin growth elsewhere in the body. Example clinical studies:

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23981679/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22014594/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36944401/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28131500/

My takeaway is that skin expansion can achieve fast growth rates whether it's foreskin tissue, breast or scalp tissue, etc. I.e., skin doubling in 3 months (on average) = 26%/month increases, and inflating the expander more frequently can increase this rate further. I haven't seen evidence that there is some differentiating factor about foreskin tissue that would make the process slower than elsewhere despite the above evidence (like the presence of the dartos fascia), although I am happy to see that if anyone is aware of any.

Not many people doing restoration report percentage growth rates, but it seems most achieve 2-5% and occasionally a few report more (e.g., 10%) if they are more aggressive. What this tells me straightaway is that current foreskin restoration methods are extremely inefficient and the device market / methods are ripe for disruption. And that people need to record their progress more. Achieving even half the growth rate of skin expanders consistently would be a breakthrough. E.g., Using my own modelling estimates and skin measurements as examples, to grow enough skin to go from CI5 to CI7, 2%/month growth would take 36 months, 5% would take 14.5 months, 10% would take 7.4 months, and 26% would take 3 months. I'll come back to this later.

So what are the characteristics of skin expanders we need to focus on to improve foreskin growth efficiency?

1. Time under a critical level of stretch should be maximised (Figure 3 in this study). Note that skin expanders don't even do this 100% efficiently! This is because the tension decreases below the critical tension threshold as the skin expands, and stays like that until the patient's next weekly appointment to inflate the balloon further. See Figure 2 in this study. I.e. that 26%/month average isn't even the fastest growth that the skin is capable of achieving.
2. "Critical stretch" is hard to define quantitatively, maybe impossible, and plastic surgeons don't really bother either when doing skin expansion. Instead they follow these criteria:
   1. The skin feels tight, tense and "hard".
   2. The skin blanches (turns white) when touched lightly but then colour returns quickly afterwards.
   3. No pain (but mild discomfort is acceptable if it is not disruptive). You can also go to a breast cancer support forum and see what these women say about their experience of tissue expanders. Example. "Hard boobs" that feel like "cricket balls", and discomfort for the first couple of days until the skin has stretched (which tells you a lot about how quickly the skin adapts and how much time these women are spending above the critical stretch threshold if the balloon is inflated weekly).
3. Multi-directional forces (more on this below).
4. Surface area under critical stretch (described above) must be maximised. Note that skin expanders still see less tension at the edges of the target area (Figure 6 in this study visualises this), but still get high level of tension in most of the target area. This is because a tension gradient is set up starting from the centre of the balloon. Foreskin restoration tugging methods also have tension gradients which I have illustrated below with some basic drawings...

Slides:

1. Think of the foreskin as a long rectangle with the scar line (or ridged band) in the middle. Tugging from the scar line sets up a linear gradient with high tension at the scar line, and less tension as you towards either the base or the glans. The colour gradient is illustrative.
2. Higher tension both increases the surface area of skin brought above the critical stretch threshold, and increases the intensity of growth signalling at the centre of that gradient.
3. Unfortunately, in reality the methods we use create tensionless dead zones where growth is not stimulated. The size of the dead zone is smallest with t-tape, and highest when you have a lot of skin under the gripper of a device. In this zone, the skin is squeezed (by a gripper / fingers) but not stretched. The effect of this is significant and rather shocking!
4. Could devices be killing your growth rate? Imagine you're using a gripper that grips 4 cm skin (2cm inner and 2 cm outer). Using my own skin measurements (I'm CI5) and some very simple modelling, reducing the surface area of tensionable skin by 4 cm significantly increases the amount of time it would take me to grow the skin I need for CI7 by 33%. This would turn my 14.5 months at 5%/month (typical "great" result in this community) into 19.3 months, or 35.7 months at 2%/month into 47.5 months (an extra year!). However, this effect is proportional to the skin you have available. I.e., if you're a low CI, then trying to use a device with a larger dead zone is probably slowing down your restoration speed by more than 50% as you'll have so little skin really being stimulated to grow. If you're at a higher CI, the effect is much less impactful. You need to calculate this yourself using your own skin measurements and device though! This is a big reason why lower CI men should be sticking to t-tape over devices if possible, beyond it just being a method that works with less available skin from the start.
5. Dual tension just adds another tension gradient, but in a small area (inner skin focus). The dead zone is still present and slows growth in both inner and outer skin.
6. Adding tugging on top of dual tension intensifies the outer skin gradient somewhat, so you'd get faster outer skin growth.
7. You might see people talk about using cock rings / oxball squeeze etc - this concentrates the same amount of tension into the desired area (the shaft outer skin) and helps keep the ventral skin taut.
8. Skin expanders force the skin to grow in all directions...
9. ... and air inflation methods mimic this by creating a foreskin balloon (and don't seem to create weirdly shaped foreskins), but suffer from the same dead zone problem.
10. Therefore, to maximise skin growth speed without asking a surgeon to insert a skin expander, you need to define your target skin area (and measure it), and make sure that as much of that area as possible is under critical tension as much as possible, and ideally apply forces in multiple directions. At this point you create a fun engineering problem and you can brainstorm method and device ideas to experiment with or create.
11. I think the optimal method would somehow stretch the shaft longitudinally while also inflating the shaft so that it takes on the role of a skin expander balloon, like a weird modified penis pump with a vacuum cup on the glans to stop it being affected - but that might make the shaft explode (?) Maybe the entire shaft skin can be pulled in all directions all the time without a vacuum or bulky device, or maybe inflation methods can be modified to maximise surface area / reduce the dead zone or create multiple / better foreskin balloons along the shaft... who knows.
12. After trying a few different set-ups, I took all of the above to adapt my own t-tape method which I'm currently experimenting with, the NSFW post explaining how I do that is here. I'm aiming to get multiple tension gradients going across the entire shaft as consistently as possible, plus intermittent higher tension similar to the "Elliptical Machine method", and see what growth rate % that achieves. I'll update with results next year when they're available.

I don't want to put anyone off devices with this, they obviously have a trade off but that could be worth it for you depending on your lifestyle and available skin, especially at higher CI levels. Ideally, I'd love for a device maker to read this and get a bit more creative - something that tensions the entire shaft skin in multiple directions 24/7, or at least come up with something that can prepare, fold and apply the t-tape automatically for me!

And of course, the best way to know how effective your method is, and therefore whether any changes or experiments you make actually improve things, is to track inner and outer skin lengths over time. I've been doing SO much reading of anecdotal FR reports trying to find data, and reading posts from people complaining about no progress but having no measurements, or reporting mm/month increases without explaining what that is relative to or percentage changes etc ... there should be a more rigorous standard for how to discuss your progress over time! Especially as available skin area and tensioned skin area are such important metrics. I find that pulling target inner and outer skin as taut as possible, and measuring them separately, is very consistent.

Here are a couple more research papers I found interesting for those more mathematically inclined:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eml.2016.06.008

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3212404/

https://preview.redd.it/8z075q33fv8e1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=d75771651d85e38b61de7a93e09ed6440e8849de

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https://preview.redd.it/cz69t375fv8e1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=148f9a08ace3259faaf0256a48b880a40e71c35a

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https://preview.redd.it/0apofwt6fv8e1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=37b6498bcb00cac6f529a78ddc8d3e4608ce3b44

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https://preview.redd.it/uhzm2ld8fv8e1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=ffaeb7d8b0018488dd5a99dbae4f372c86c03259

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https://preview.redd.it/iq4fy13bfv8e1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=902ae76c03ab194a3d3a8f849dd2ca48c6219a06

I bought the $20 upgrade kit for the mantor a few weeks ago and it arrived just before Christmas. Upon installing, I can see that the new parts are marginally more compact, but I'm struggling to see how it's an upgrade over the old design -- especially when it comes to use of use putting on and taking off.

The old design was as simple as turning the knob at the end of the device to adjust tension or to put on. This new upgrade kit requires all 3 bands to be pinched and precisely lined up between the threaded barrel-shaped piece and the unthreaded cone shaped piece. Am i missing something? How is this an improvement?

I know a lot of you think foregen is a scam, but let's say its not and could hypothetically come out in 2040. If i were restored, would foregen still work on me? If yes, i might just bite the bullet and start restoring.

Hey y’all Im new to the restoration and I feel really down about it, I just turned 18 a couple months ago and It’s been a week that I have been tugging, I do manual because I don’t have the bed sheet clips to do T-Taping. Do y’all think if I try to do like 2hours of tugging it will still do anything? I want to try T-taping but I dont know how, without the sheet clippers.

Has anyone had good results using chucks extended retainers+spacers to grow skin?

If so What length retainer would you recommend starting with for someone around ci3?

know its a shot in the dark but there wouldn't happen to be any restorers here would there? Would be great to see progress in person.

I’ve been restoring 3.5 with devices and manual but still have more outer on one side. I’ve heard t tape but been too lazy do try it. Any advice on how to grow more outer skin specifically on the right underside?

Anyone allergic to tape found a solution or barrier wipe/spray that helps?

This question is mainly for the straight guys on the forum but for all the gay men your opinion is valuable too!

Since starting have you become so preoccupied with restoring/circumcision/foreskin that when you see other men or when you meet other men that you wonder about whether they are circumcised or not? How about in porn (if you watch)?

For the gay men, if you didn’t do that too much before, do you find yourself doing that more now?

Maybe it’s just me, in which case yikes, I hope I don’t have a different issue to consider lol.

Thanks everyone for all that you do! I am eternally grateful for everyone in this group and I wish everyone great progress this upcoming year.

Happy Holidays whoever and wherever you are!

I awoke this morning to a dawn sky.

I walked outside onto the deck, looked up in the pre-dawn night sky to see a trail of soft green lights moving north to south across the sky.

Lower than the stars, but higher than a plane, and moving incredibly fast.

I've waited 60 years to see Santa and his reindeer in flight.

What a magical way to start a most memorable day.

Merry Christmas to you all wherever you are scattered around the world.

Hey everyone. I just got my order in from mantor. This is my first device(s) and I haven't done any tugging or tape before.

I got this bundle - Mantor-Restorer DS+SLT+Skin2skin Retainer+Tugging Kit. I don't exactly have enough foreskin to put it all on though and maybe my measurements weren't accurate. So I decided to just throw the retainer on. It was kind of a pain though because I kept getting an erection as I tried. But I've managed to get it on at least. I understand retainers aren't necessarily meant for growing foreskin, however, after about an hour of wearing it I am feeling it a bit in terms of - it's getting a bit sore.

I have a couple questions first, will this tension I'm experiencing help me to get more skin so I can put my device on? I intend to wear it as much as possible I don't have the discipline to consistently tug to help gain more skin.

Also, is it normal that putting on the retainer is causing erections? Will this go away over time of using it? Once it's on I don't have an issue it's just the process of putting it on involves - erection > flaccid > put device on.

Is that a good and reliable thing for restoration. Anyone here ever used it? If so, let me know how long it took

Does anyone know of/ or are themselves examples of bigger-than-average 'shower' restorers who have documented their progress from beginning to end? Looking for inspiration.

I absolutely love the way it looks when it puckers up , it happens sometimes after I shower or work out but why does it cause the foreskin to pucker?

As an advocate against CGM of any kind, what is self-evident from listening to the podcast is the lack of understanding on the part of mental health practitioners of the extent of the trauma that survivors of CGM experience, and that gaslighting is common, especially for survivors of MGM, not only from society in general, but also mental health practitioners. That's not to say that one is worse than the other, as all CGM is wrong. It's just that society often recognises the legitimacy of FGM while ignoring MGM and often blaming MGM survivors for how they react and feel.

Listening to each episode has helped me better understand the diversity of the trauma response, the extent that the mental health profession just simply "doesn't get it", and how to better shape my work in establishing peer support programs for survivors of FGM & MGM worldwide.

Thank you u/openrds and u/startingline- you've hit a winner. You've given us a voice that's been sadly lacking.

I'd like to quote from a book by Marilyn Milos from Intact America - Please Don’t Cut the Baby.

"My dream is that one day doctors won't ask parents if they want their baby cut,; parents won't ask Drs to cut their babies; children no longer blame their parents, and parents no longer have to ask for forgiveness and the whole sordid world of the circumcision industry will no longer be a part of human existence."

Please support this great podcast series, which shines the light on what's wrong with genital cutting practices and the benefits of foreskin restoration.

I’m still getting familiar with it. Best routine? I got the leg strap.

Does anyone know what I can buy to cover my glans to keep it from keritinizing?

what device should i start with? deciding to pull the trigger on restoration and i dont know where to start. not to intrested in just manual stretching.

Has anyone here start with a low cut and restore the mucosa to a high cut? If so, where did you start and where are you now? How long did it take for you?

I'm thinking of buying the CAR-1 but wanted to ask if there's maybe a promo codo I can use at checkout? Tnx guys

Christmas is the promise that what ever the current circumstances of your life may be, things will get better. This is a wish for everyone of you great guys. We are all wounded men from every part of this wonderful world. United in our efforts to restore what is ours, our birthright. It is your Posts, it is your answers your encouragement and your friendship as we guide each other everyday on this journey that has made this site the great life changing success that it is. Merry Christmas.

I think wearing it while erect has stretched it out making it loose and more easily fall off.

I got cut at the age of 13, during summer. I'm still a teen and can't get the surgery without parent's consent (don't want them to know). I wish to have a reversal made at 18 after graduation, by then parent's consent is unneeded, but there is so little about dorsal slit reversal that it's so difficult to research because studies, articles, etc, are limited.

My "lambi" (inversed foreskin, below the frenelum) is less prominent than my fellow peers as I had a strechable but not as long foreskin than them. As to why I got a dorsal slit, It is because of stupid "tradition" and toxic culture that forces many of us to get circumcised or the latter ("tuli" dorsal slit). Because of this custom, uncut males will be ridiculed and taunted. The word "supot" meaning uncircumcised is considered an insult.

In California. If you are somehow in this wild situation, how would you go over finding a surgeon/doctor to perform this surgery? And my dick is still growing, will that effect foreskin length? would I need to restore? Thank you!

Hey all, Looking for some more information on the foreskinned air. I have a not-so-big penis so the size of my head is decently smaller than the actual dimensions of the device (im25mm head which is smaller than the 31mm inside width and 37mm outside width

Wondering if any other smaller sized guys have had an issue? I’m semi leaning toward the CAR 1 right now because I have some size options