Is there an easy way to restore a foreskin?

I'm a baby boomer, and all the talk about circumcision and sexual sensitivity has been kind of hitting home. So I was wondering if you think it's possible for someone to invent something - a treatment or medical procedure - that would allow circumcised men to become intact again without going through a long, painful process?

A: Dr. Dean: Right now, there's nothing instant or easy. I recently got an e-mail from a man who went through the scotch tape, restretching deal, but who started out with another method I had talked about for increasing sexual sensitivity.

I had said, if you put on a condom and leave it on for a few days, it protects your tip the way the skin would. He tried that and got enough restoration of sensitivity that he decided to do the full deal.

There are also a couple of medicines that hospitals use for calluses and things like that, that will thin out the skin and increase sensitivity. I don't think they're appropriate or easy to use, though I know some men who have. And I'm not going to give you any product names because I don't want men running out and trying this stuff on their own.

We need to keep this issue in perspective. It's really important to know - and there is a little bit of tongue-in-cheek in all of this - that your sex life is not ! automatically a disaster because you're circumcised.

But as men grow older, reduction in sensitivity can become an issue, and we may have to modify our sexual behavior, for example, in terms of maintaining erections. This is a big subject we'll probably never understand completely.

Dean Edell, M.D.