Frustrations and General Questions with Sizing as a Grower

[LockedUpIn716WNY]

Okay, so a little context. I began trying to cage up around April of this year on my own. My first cage was a silicone cage that eventually I stopped wearing due to an alarming amount of edemas and getting pinched in the gaps of the cage tube (HoD601 knock-off from Amazon) along with my first experiences with pinching on the base ring. Another cage I brought from Pandoras Boxxx (a blue line) - I used this for a little while, but a pro-domme I saw said she thought it was turning my scrotum too dark which freaked me out a bit (I had been wearing the cage for hours to a few days at a time, depending on how bad the pinching was getting). I never had any pain (apart from pinching/a "wire stretching" effect on the bottom along the base ring along with dull blue balls aching), but the thought of the dark color freaked me out a bit.

A few devices later, I'm finally trying out HT-v4 knock-offs that I got from Amazon. My first tube was the small which I had for roughly a week, then I went and got the Nano, which I'm wearing right now. I have some general questions that I'm hoping someone could either put my mind at rest about or give me the slap I need to get a new device. Keep in mind that I am a bit of a hypochondriac as well.

- When I measure my base ring circumference, I arrive at around 62mm (if I use the string method, somehow I'll register ~82mm - leading me to believe that I'm doing it wrong). Currently, I'm using a 52mm ring. At various parts of the ring, I can put in the tip of my index finger, up to the first knuckle, or slightly past the first knuckle if I push into the skin slightly and wiggle it through (so, in other words, there's resistance but I can get it in). This is when I'm completely flaccid. All of the finger tests online mention fitting a finger through the ring, but is it supposed to slide on through? Be a bit rigid? Do you have to use force to get it through the ring? Additionally, I'll notice the color darkens variably over time. There is occasionally a cold feel at various points on my scrotum, but this doesn't seem to be constant. At no point do I have a pain that stops me from getting up and walking, for example - but I do get pinching as well as blue balls ache on the back of my scrotum. I also feel the need to use the shoelace method to keep the cage close to me. When I'm aroused, however, as a grower there's almost no space to get a finger between the ring and my scrotum (unless I try very hard to do so which even then only works on occasion), my balls will turn darker and it does push the cage away from me slightly (which I can usually address by tightening the shoe lace). Again, however, there's no pain that feels as if I was kicked in the nuts.

- I'm cut, however I've always naturally had a large amount of bunched up skin behind the glans. When putting on the HT-v4 knock-off, if I shove the skin inside the tube using the stocking method, it messes up my urine flow to the point where I need to push it out (so constricts it). If I just let it rest behind the tube, it'll get trapped between my scrotum and the tube - if I'm aroused, it'll bubble up but then usually goes back down to a small bubble shortly after being aroused. I can't figure out if this is an edema or not, and if it is, given that there's no pain, if I should necessarily be worried about it.

- In both the small and the nano cages, the tip of my urethra is poking out of the pee hole, kinda like fish lips. If I take the tube off after a couple of days, the bubble on my tip that results from this goes back to normal within an hour or two. There's also some swelling, or at least indentations, around the two holes at the head of the cage. The problem is that my flaccid length greatly varies. I constantly measure around 3 inches to 3.5 inches flaccid from base to tip, however, when I put a Maxi cage or even a standard cage on, it seems to vary if it'll stay that length or if it'll go down and I end up with my tip behind where the glans are on the cage. This is where I thought the small would work, especially given that I know short cages are a desired effect in some people (including myself) - however again, the tip protruding like it does has me concerned if this is a safety issue or not. There's no pain (apart from the first day or two with rubbing against my clothes - but after the third day, this tends to go away until I size down a cage, and then the cycle repeats - same thing with urination. Peeing burns from sensitivity for the first day but then stops, despite the "fish lips" still being there). The only other thing it causes is split-stream urination, which I usually resolve by adjusting how I'm sitting on the toilet.

- The shaft appears to be a very slight shade to just below a "medium" shade of purple when in the acrylic see-through tube. Again, no pain and I'm assuming that this is normal given that there is compression taking place, just want to make sure that this is actually the case.

There might be a few more points I think of, but these are really the biggest concerns that I have with wearing a cage right now. Please help me either relax or realize that there's a problem here! And if there is a problem, how do I work into shorter cages over time? My goal is to eventually get into an inverted cage.

TIA!