Ask the Expert: Is a bent penis normal?

If your penis has a bit of a bend but can do the things you need it to do – like urinate and have sex – without pain or difficulty, you probably don’t need to worry about it. But, like for any part of your body, if it hurts or if it’s not working properly, you should get it checked out.

It’s not unusual if your penis has a slight curve when it’s erect, but for men with Peyronie’s disease there might be an obvious bend or kink.

Peyronie’s disease is thought to be caused by abnormal healing of an injury to the penis, resulting in scarring of the connective tissue (tunica albuginea) that surrounds the parts (corpora cavernosa) of the penis that fill with blood to cause an erection^[1]. Most people who have Peyronie’s disease don’t remember injuring their penis, though, so the injury that causes the problem might only need to be slight.

Peyronie’s disease usually has an acute phase, during which your penis might be painful and the amount of bending increases, and a chronic phase, when the bend stops changing and pain becomes less or goes away.

For some people, the bend in their penis can be so severe that they can’t have sexual intercourse. The bend might be a source of embarrassment, but the effect on your sex life and relationship can have a much bigger psychological impact.

There are medicines you can take or have injected into your penis, to treat Peyronie’s disease. Surgery is sometimes needed. Some newer treatments, like platelet-rich plasma injections, aren’t proven to work. You should talk to a GP to help work out what might be the right treatment for you.