'You might feel a bee sting' was the warning neurosurgeon Marcella Madera gave Shawn Wells as she made the first of six injections deep into the base of his penis.

The biochemist and entrepreneur soon began to breathe heavily from the extreme discomfort, while Madera continued pumping embryonic stem cells extracted from his legs into his manhood. Is it pain or pressure? Madera asked. Both, was the gritted-teeth response from Wells, who had come to the Restorative Medicine Center in Austin, Texas, for the Adonis Experience, a suite of cutting edge, experimental rejuvenation treatments for men that promise penis enhancement and sexual optimisation.

The desire to enhance the look and feel of ones penis

More recently, doctors have been injecting fat so-called penile fillers from patients stomachs into their penises. There have been apparent successes, but many have been left with wonky, deformed cocks rather than the handsome truncheons they craved. Penile implants and lengthening surgeries, equally, have left some men fulfilled and proud, and others flabbergasted and dismayed. In Sweden, in 2017, a 30-year-old man had a heart attack and died just after having fat cells injected into his penis.

But cutting-edge technological advancements are changing whats possible. Stem-cell injections and shock therapy are becoming the means du jour for men seeking to become more content with their penises, and increasing numbers of men claim they help reverse the inevitable effects of ageing while also improving performance.

It's no wonder people are so excited about it all. Half of all men above 40 are affected by erectile dysfunction, or impotence, and as testosterone levels decline, erections lose strength and orgasms become less intense. Im approaching 50; it's important for it to work just as well as it ever has done, says Wells.

Shawn Wells with Dr Marcella Madera.

A year-and-a-half after his own procedure, Wells says his erections are back to full strength, after having softened with age. Sometimes he hadnt even been able to get an erection or would lose it halfway through sex. That's no longer the case. I gained as much as 20% (in length and strength). It literally looks and feels bigger. Enjoyment levels have increased too. When it's more erect, not only are you giving her more pleasure, youre getting more pleasure too, because the more blood flow there is, the more sensation. And certainly, it lasts longer.

According to Wells account, it appears that he has reversed the symptoms of erectile dysfunction that creep up on men as they grey. He has decreased his penile age, after finally getting stem-cell injections in his dick following almost a decade getting them elsewhere in his body to biohack his biological clock back to age 33. After all, what kind of longevity regimen doesn't also make you 'last longer'?

But Wells isnt the only biohacker taking on penile ageing. Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur and poster boy of the longevity movement, uses a wand-like instrument to shock his penis through acoustic technology in an attempt to reverse his aging dick and get the erections of an 18-year-old.

On a Zoom call at the end of January, Johnson told Mens Health that just the week before he had received Botox injections in his penis after reading that it could be beneficial. It increased blood flow, he says. It increased penile length [and gave me] stronger erections.

Johnson, who says he already had ideal penis health when he embarked on this journey, has previously been lampooned by some for sharing how he straps a small sensor device to his penis several nights a month to measure the strength of his erections and ensure his penile age is decreasing. But night time erections are really important indicators of sexual, physiological and cardiovascular health, he says. When I shared this publicly, several of my friends messaged me to say they think they have none. Theyre all signed up with grind culture, Johnson says, and not prioritising sleep, and therefore their cocks arent working properly.

At his last erection-strength reading, the 46-year-old, who famously spends $2m a year to ward off ageing through various means, was erect for about two hours, 12 minutes on average per night, giving him a penile age of just over 30. To reach the level of a late-teen, he would have to be hard for three-and-a-half hours during sleep.

Unfortunately, the contraption Johnson has been using got a bug preventing fresh data capture over the past two months. A new device is on its way, but for him, the jury has already given its verdict. I perform better sexually than I have in my entire life, he says. In terms of penile health, readiness, and desire. Im probably at peak ability.

Johnson believes the unpleasant extracorporeal sound-wave shocks (in pain terms a 7/10 on the shaft, but 9/10 at the tip, he says) that are said to strengthen the pelvic floor where some of the muscles attached to the base of the penis originate were therefore worth it.

But whats the deeper reason behind the drive to de-age the dick? Johnson and Wells have a history of obesity and depression in common and today theyre hungry to make up for time spent not living their current baller lifestyles and to achieve eternal youth. It took me years to remove that internal demon, Johnson has said. I spent most of my life with PTSD, feeling suicidal, and depressed, says Wells.

Both Wells and Johnson spoke at the longevity and psychedelics conference Wonderland, held by the company Microdose, in Miami, at the end of last year. Another of the attendees, Dave Asprey, author and self-proclaimed father of biohacking, gave a talk on the secrets of brain longevity and declared that he intended to live until at least 180. Id like to have a really active sex life as part of that, he says to Men's Health.

Asprey first received stem-cell injections in his penis in 2015, and has since done the treatment several further times. He also has a shockwave machine at home. Doing those and shockwaves three times, I grew about an inch and a half, he reveals.

Asprey says it was not his goal to change the size of his penis, it was more that he routinely tests new biohacking technologies, but he believes he was the first person to talk publicly about biohacking his penis. It's tough to talk about because bragging about your dick size is the douchiest thing you could do So youd have to ask my girlfriend, thats the kind of results you get from it.

Dave Asprey, the so-called father of biohacking, uses a shockwave machine at home. He says it's enabled him to grow about an inch and a half.

The 50-year-old is content with his role spearheading the wave of penile health consciousness, though he is yet to wear the FirmTech ring at night to measure his erectile health and fitness. But Asprey claims that thousands of men have followed his lead and undergone restorative therapies for erectile dysfunction. I would guess that as a result of my podcast, at least 50,000 guys have gone out and done this, he says. I remember one time I told a group of friends at dinner, guys in their 40s to 60s. All of them went out and got it done. A couple of them came back and were like, Damn, yeah, that worked. One of them had the Peyronie's [disease] where it tilts to one side, and it got straightened out.

Dr Shirin Lakhani, the founder of Elite Aesthetics, started offering penis enhancements with blood plasma back in 2014. Stem-cell treatments are far harder to access in the UK due to medical guidelines, and, it has to be said, the greater propensity of British doctors to act in line with the clinical evidence base. Hundreds of clinics across the US offer a variety of stem-cell therapies, while only about 17 places in the UK provide the so-called P-shots. I'd get a handful of enquiries every week to start with, she recalls. Now we're absolutely inundated.

Dr Shirin Lakhani with a P-shot.

About one-in-five of patients that undergo the procedure dont get any improvements, but some get a 25% increase in girth and 20% increase in length for up to a year on average, and sometimes longer, she says. A great deal of importance has been placed on men by society in being able to have intercourse and perform, she says. I find it incredibly rewarding to be able to help. Giving people back their confidence, improving their lives and their wellbeing. It's just part of being a doctor.

However, many experts are concerned that there is not yet enough robust clinical data to support the growing use of these penile revamp therapies. As of January last year, the published papers on stem-cell therapy for erectile dysfunction included studies performed on fewer than 120 men. In a study on 17 men with perpetually flaccid penises, just under half recovered their erectile function thanks to stem cell injections. Subsequently, they were able to accomplish sexual intercourse. A study with 60 men had similar results, while a meta analysis including 12 human studies found that no major complications were reported in any of the trials.

There is also only preliminary research to prove the efficacy of shockwave therapy, which is a common treatment to dislodge kidney stones. A study in the Scandinavian Journal of Urology had 112 male participants, all of whom had erectile dysfunction and were unable to have sex without Viagra which many men do not respond to and even when it works can cause headaches and nausea. After five weekly low-intensity soundwave shocks along their penises, more than half of the test group were having sex again unaided. That compares to 9% of the placebo group. The treatment was christened as a shocking Viagra alternative.

In its most recent position paper on restorative therapies for erectile dysfunction, the Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA) acknowledged the treatments represent a promising technology, but warned the current published studies are limited and underpowered. Until larger, higher-quality studies are complete, restorative therapies should be reserved for clinical trials and not offered in routine clinical practice, SMSNA said.

Dr Leigh Turner, a bioethics expert from the University of California, says outfits are persistently making bold marketing claims to attract clients without the clinical evidence to back them up, which is a recipe for patients spending considerable amounts of money for little or no chance of clinical benefits beyond potentially transient placebo effects. Im worried about clinics exploiting the hopes, fears, and anxieties of patients, he says. Its very easy to take advantage of vulnerable individuals who are looking for help.

He warns that US businesses currently marketing stem-cell treatments for erectile dysfunction are often not staffed by urologists or other trained specialists. Rather, many such clinics are staffed by individuals that have no meaningful expertise in erectile dysfunction, urology or mens health.

Still, the desire to enhance the look and feel of ones penis has always been a male obsession. Despite the limited data, anecdotal reports of positive benefits make them a worthwhile risk for many. Thats buttressed by the fact that many athletes, including Tiger Woods and Rafael Nadal, have undergone stem-cell treatments on other parts of their body.

UFC bantamweight champion, Sean OMalley.

UFC bantamweight champion Sean OMalley was at a clinic in Mexico in 2022 to get stem-cell therapy to treat a recurring knee injury when he decided on a whim to get the injections in his penis, too. There's one guy there, and he's like, Yeah I'm getting my dick done, he recalled on his podcast. I think he had erectile dysfunction or something, and I'm like, Well, my wiener works perfectly fine. Is there any cons or is it just pros? The doctors told him it could help with girth, performance, explosive orgasms. So I'm like "Well, it ain't the first time I've had a needle in my wiener, hit me up doc." It was painful and there was serious bruising, but he claims his erect penis is now about four-inches bigger.

It was $5,000 well invested for Wells to ensure he could always get a healthy boner, too. His occasional inability to maintain an erection previously would, naturally, disrupt intimate moments and lead to frustration. It impacts your confidence, he says. I really feel Im living my best and most useful life now.

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Stem-Cell Penis Enlargement: Biohackers Increasing the Size of Their Penis - Men's Health UK