Post Vasectomy Pain - need help

Just the same problem and symptoms as yours: botched surgery on the left side, hughe swelling for a month and hard scar tissue blocking the cord; the testi sitting high and hard, like trapped. It´s already 3 months since I got the surgery, and I can´t notice any improvement for the last month. As in your case, UROs seem to dissmis my problem as if it was no relevant; I guess they´re trying to ignore the blunder.

How are you going? Did you find any medical answer or relieving activity? I find it useful to put some ice there for a couple of minutes, but the relief lasts little time.

Thank you for sharing your experience and greetings from Spain.

I had mine reversed in July.  The right side is 90% better, the left side is maybe 50% better.  I flew across the country to the reversal clinic and had Dr. Baldwin do the procedure.  He was great.  I may go back to him later to redo the left side if that doesn't improve.

You've joined by the nature your post has appeared. Might have been a flaw in sign up procedure.

You might get limited feedback with regards U.S.A. Drs and surgeons as it's primarily a U.K. forum.

There is no cure for PvP, only shades of degrees of lessening the pain and that is hit and miss and appears to be unique to the patient involved.

Some find a reversal helps, others find an epidydectomy helps, others find of the reversal doesn't help then the follow on epidydectomy does...and some find the pain stays the same or increases no matter what.

I opted for epidydectomy based on information provided by others and medics...that was my choice and on my head...it made things worse, a lot worse.

The thing to also remember is reversal surgery has an incidence rate of causing PvP as well...So whilst it might reverse fertility, not your goal, it can in extreme circumstances pile PvP on PvP so to speak.

Same with meds....don't think there's many I've not tried...some were abject failures and morphine whilst stopping pain kept allowing break through pain which resulted in a higher dose which resulted in breakthrough pain...and so on in a vicious cycle until palliative care levels were reached.

They've now got me on methadone which again does hit the pain on the head totally! But like, morphine before it, it lasts x time and then breakthrough pain. I've just had the first dose increase and am really hoping this isn't the start of a vicious cycle again.

The quality of the surgeon may have much do with how successful you are in losing the PvP but stats are pretty low.

That said there is a Dr, in Florida, I believe who does seem to get great results from robotic surgery. I can't for the life of me remember his name sorry which considering how much reading up I did on him and the technique is bugging me. Just try Google using variations of robotic surgery, micro surgery and Florida and he'll be bound to show up. What I can say is his resume, peer review and patient feedback generally was top tier.

I'm sorry you're in the hell many of us are in because of the lies or lack of honesty or lack of info from medics :-( it's so hard for non sufferers to even begin to understand.

But like I've said throughout above you have to really remember the risks of further surgery and that the chances of success aren't set but simply on how on individuals body reacts..that said it wouldn't do any harm to have the best Dr you can to ensure , at least, the surgery was performed to top standard.

Drs have no idea what causes PvP, which begs the question why the hell is still allowed, and as they don't know what causes it they don't know how to cure it.

Vasectomy needs much research into PvP but it'll never happen because many Drs Burri their heads in sands and deny it exists our have a vested interest in ensuring the myth of a safe simple procedure is kept alive to ensure they get to keep their lucrative vasectomy business alive.

Really hope you find some peace

I am afraid there is nothing that can be done. Further surgery carries a high risk of making it worse. I had an epdidymectomy on the left and it's no better for pain. The surgery has also damaged my testosterone levels so I am on replacement therapy. 4 years of pain now and getting replacement therapy has been a huge struggle.

Thanks for the reply PVP-ouch and thanks for the attempt to any others that have tried. I do feel that there is money (scam) "not" to admit that there are problems ... Because the precentages are fairly low. But in my opinion "one" is too many especially when it is me. Or other seemingly good people like are on this board. They say the body reclaims the unused sperm ...that is the opposite of the perscription for blueballs for young kids. The perscription is to just masterbate and no more blue balls. The doctor that did my reversal said that there was tons of old dead sperm in there. I asked him if he cleaned them out?  and he basically said "thats not what you paid me for...no i left it in...you're just more sensitive than other men". F him I used to play linebacker! What a unsympathetic inhuman nondoctor like answer! These guys dont deserve to be called doctors! Isnt the credo "first do no harm" ? I also think changing it to an openended works when you caught it in time like Boedacious did. Mine didnt start hurting real bad until it was too late. I have herd of the doctors in Orlando but i have yet to talk to someone who has had a reversal done by them and has had success. When i talked to them they seemed very nice but seemed like i couldnt get out of town fast enough because i kept saying i could arange to stay for weeks until we could see that it worked ..But they  kept insisting i could leve right away....i couldnt understnd it. If they were so good wouldnt they be interested in seeing how well it went? Then there is a Doctor near hear that dosent take insurance becuse he claims to be so good nam Dr. Turek or something.... i was willing to see him but when he herd that i was on narcotics because the pain is so intense he said that he didnt want to see me and that i had to get off of the narcotuics first...this tells me that he doesnt understand just how painful this is! People laugh when a man gets hit in the balls all the time ...yet it seems like no one cares when he is made to feel like his testicals are going to explode by a US sanctioned proceedure that causes a man so much pain...there seems to be a double standard here. And like all things in this country ....regretfully it all revolves around money! I had a few questions for the people out there with long term PVPS. Do the most of you have a lot of body hair? (which might infer excess testosterone) 2. Have any of you tried cannabis to ignore the pain when you first started feeling the pain? It may be just a shot in the dark but cannabis is known to increase sperm production or act like an aphrodisiac...could it be making it worse in some people ? And 3. Are there any people out there who have PVPS drink alcohol to quell the pain? And does it work ? Because i have herd that alcohol actually lowers sperm production . I cant drink,much, becuse of stomch problems. And was wondering if this worked for you?. And lastly 4. Does anybody know of some doctors that understand this problem and are willing to discuss with you on the phone (for a fee of coarse) that are also great surgeons? i find it hard to believe that they can fix hearts and brains... But these guys cant fix testical pain! Help please ....if anybody knows some sympathetic talented surgeons. I want to talk to them and get this life wrecking problem fixed. I cant imagine what i did to deserve this. I have never been suicidal...but if this goes on many more years i'm not sure how much of this i can take. I wanted to enjoy my life ...i wanted to help people. Is there someone out there that can help me? Thank you if you have the answer!

PS.  Gabapentin helps but it messes up your balance and you can fall and make it even worse. If you talke it take it only at bedtime. Take this for what its worth ...not a whole hell of a lot. But it may work for someone out there. Peace...ive tried prayer...it doesnt seem to work long term. But that doesnt mean ive stopped trying. Good luck 

6 months in with continuing pain and pain on ejaculation....try reading up on Posy Vasectomy Pain Syndrome.

Wikipedia (not ideal I know) has an article...which isn't hugely great but it isnt the article that's important here...look at the symptom list and see if anything else sounds familiar...if it does then at least you can begin to attempt to "label" what's wrong.

Dr's have zero to little idea about PVP, so it doesn't surpise me they have no idea what's going on. Amazing they'll happily refer a patient without knowing risks or symptoms to patient which then can impact massively on their ability to care for their own patient!

Thank you for posting your story. It is the only one I can find even similar to mine. I was extremely misinformed about vasectomy risks and complications. They blew through a powerpoint presentation with me that I'm not sure it even mentioned any risks of future pain and didn't even do a physical examination. Otherwise I would have opted for condoms or birth control pill with nearly 0 risk of complications instead. On the operating table after he did the right side, he told me he couldn't find a vas on the left side. Apparently I'm a rare case of only having one side connected.

In a few weeks I started having issues exactly as you describe. I had sex a couple times over a couple days and then all the sudden the next day I started having severe pain and pressure in my testicle. It tends to be a bit of a dull ache that is manageable as long as I don't orgasm. Wife isn't too keen on never having sex again.

I tried to take a couple weeks off with no orgasm or anything to try to let my body adjust, but it didn't seem to help. Since then I've opted to limit sex to about once a week as I think the pain isn't quite as bad. Now it's pretty consistent about 12 hours after my testicle seems to be a bit more swollen than the other side and I think my epididymis seems like maybe it gets kind of full and swollen as well. My groin on that side also usually feels like it's sore or pulled when the pain starts as if I was exercising(even if I just laying there during sex). It feels like my body starts ramping up production to replace the used semen, but eventually just fills up with no where to go after 12 hours or so. I wonder if perhaps my right testicle has been working overtime to make up for my left one not being connected resulting in more pressure than most others. I'm about 9 weeks out at this point.

The original doc tried to prescribe an anti-inflammatory that seemed to make it maybe not swell quite as much, but still hurt about the same. At this point I feel like a reversal is the only way I may get relief based on my symptoms and it seems like it worked fairly well for you. At first I was pretty worried as I feel like this is manageable and if reversal makes things worse with him hitting a nerve or something that could be devastating. I worry that I could have a blowout or things could get worse the longer I wait if the pipes get blocked before reversal then it may not help as much if I wait too long.

The doc I'm looking at is fairly cheap at $3000 and only uses loops, but is quite experienced and seems to have done quite a few successful reversals. He said he's done 3 for pain for people years down the road that started having pain and they all seemed to improve, but didn't remove the pain completely for any of them I believe is what he said.

I've read lots of information about supposedly 50% of some very small studies being pain free after reversal. I've read some horror stories of reversal where people deal with all kinds of different pain from week to work for a year almost, which is pretty frightening. I've never had any anxiety like this in my life. I could myself lucky that he only screwed with one side and can't imagine having this sort of pain on both sides or worse pain. I wonder if it's worth paying 4 times as much to travel to Arizona to have them do the reversal or pay like $5000 for some other docs to it at a bigger hospital. I appreciate any advice and feedback people may have.

Worse decision of my life.

So sorry to hear of your pain Misinformed :-( I know only too well what that pain feels like and I'm now on 3rd appointment to get radical orchiectomy, but they keep refusing.

Reversal can, in rare cases, help alleviate pain or bring it down to manageable levels.

Skill of the surgeon is best determined by his record not by his fee though. Not forgetting his skill record for reversal will be based around success of fertility restoration.

You also need to be aware reversal can trigger PvP or increase pain as well. You have to go into this hoping it can help but accepting it can get worse. Not thru fault of surgeon but because of way body reacts to another round of highly invasive surgery in an area packed with nerves.

I'd seriously suggest looking into nerve blocks before surgery, they can help some and in case of increase in pain it can settle once block wears off.

You need to do much soul searching and reading of risks etc before deciding and choose surgeon wisely and not just on he charges more....Drs will always charge as much as they possibly can and differing areas will impact on costs and overheads and ultimately the free

Take care

Marc

Hi Ethan,

I had my Vasectomy over 10 years ago. Six months post op, PVPS sent in. Massive pain in left testicle. I was treated for over 6 months with pain meds, which did not help. Rather than having a full reversal, the Dr cut one of the titanium clips off. I had immediate pain relief. He turned it into an open ended Vasectomy. Three months later my right testicle went, same massive pain. I had the procedure done the next day and have been pain free ever since.