Hydrocele repair and change in sperm quality

Sorry to hear your still in pain. My GP's examination was very brief which normally i would of taken as a sign of something good that there was nothing to worry about but i had to practically beg for a referel to see a specialist at the start of all this and since then have lost a lot of faith not to mention her answer to my question about blockage was obviously a guess. I find it quite hard to feel my epididymis on the operated side everything is quite meaty now post op. I'm still young (mid twenties) and am greatly concerened this will effect fertillity. Have made an appointment with a better doctor at my health centre but I wish there had been a follow up apointment with a specialist to the operation. Hope the ultrasound provides useful. Good luck!

Same experience as you i had 3 procedures on the same testicle(size never went back to normal) and my semen is definitely different than before and there is a lot less (seems to take longer to "refill" as well). The whole backside feels different too i can feel my epidytimis and I never could before it seems swollen and harder but no pain.

Yeah,  thinner, more watery fluid and i agree it feels like it takes longer to get back to a "normal" ammount after as well 

Through what I was given in the literature when I left the hospital and what i've read online the time to wait seems to vary greatly from whenever comfortable to like yourself around a month. Glad to hear it might not be such a big issue. I'll still have it checked out but given there are no other signs such as pain etc I hope like you said it's just to do with some remaining swelling. I know things can take a few months to fully calm down and a month after an operation isn't a long time.

Thanks

I was told by the surgeon and by someone I know that had also had this done the testicle would always remain slightly bigger. Given the size of swelling to begin with (or lack of) it's pretty much the same size it was a month ago which is about the size of a small egg. I read somewhere that 80% of swelling goes in the first month or so..but everyone's different I guess. My GP told me that things would go down even more over the next three months which I would be happy about but I wasn't under the impression it would ever be the same size as before. Everything looks normal during the day it's only at night when things get looser I notice the different way it hangs etc.

You're right about the recovery time. My surgeon told me things wouldn't be back to anything resembling normal for 2-3 months afterward. My swelling went down dramatically the first few weeks and is still reducing in size, but it's slower now.

The 4 week abstaining seems to be the protocol for my surgeon, but my hydrocele was more extensive and there was more internal stiching (and thus more internal scar tissue.) I had so much pain the first two weeks of recovery the idea of any kind of sexual activity was not even on my mind.

Now that I think about it, maybe the swelling somehow affects the flow of semen from the testicle? The only thing my surgeon mentioned to me about anything related to performance or the testicles was that there was a small chance (I think he said below 1%) that fertility would be reduced (on the side where the procedure was performe.) But, this was not a concern for me.

Yeah after the first 2 procedures it stayed about egg size but now I'm freaked out because it's been about a month and it's still pretty swollen (racquetball sized). I'm afraid that it will stay bigger now and I shouldn't have had the 3rd surgery.

Yeah I had read that the chances of it happening are incredibly low. I had also read of scar tissue blocking the sperm duct but again it's so rare it wasn't ever really stressed to me by anyone involved in the surgery. Things look alright from the outside but I've no idea what's going on inside the sack really. My appointment with a doctor isn't till the 8th next month so I'll give it some more time to change. Just wish I could see a urologist and put my mind to rest. How big would you say your hydrocele was? Mine was around the size of an avacado but was getting bigger.

Mine was a little larger than an avacado, but it had started to increase into my abdomen (it's called a "communicating hydrocele" which could have become an issue had I not addressed it. That's why I have more internal scar tissue toward the top left side of my scrotum. 

Hi, I had been meaning to come back to this.

So 6 months on scarring is un noticeable where the incision was. My testicle is only very slightly bigger than the other ( which i was told would be the case). No one else would notice any difference there. The main difference is perhaps how it sits slightly higher than the other at times but it is in no way dramaticly different and it still  has plenty of room to move.

It really did take a good 4-6 months to get back to normal and I came away after the surgery with minimal swelling etc and it looks very different (in a good way) now. I'm still getting a very different texture to my ejaculate which the hospital insisted isn't to do with the operation which seems unlikely to me, I also occasionaly get slight sensations in the area and up untill a month ago i would occasionally get a little bit of very mild shooting pain, it has since gone and i would imagine this would be expected during the healing process.

I met my current partner when I had the hydrocele and it could get in the way sometime so my sex life now is a lot better without it! Hope everything goes well with you.

I do remember how utterly distraught all this got me but just give it time it all went back to normal for me pretty much. It's certainly not noticeble or something that gets in the way of life.