|
Hello J,
My wife brought your post to my attention, and although I want to discuss fertility (and lack thereof) about as much as I'd like someone to stick needles under my toenails, I actually had my bag of worms "dewormed" just last week so hopefully I can shed a little light on the subject.
I self-diagnosed myself as having a varicocele based on some google search results and a little manhandling. To confirm my layman diagnosis, I made an appointment with a urologist, whom, after some further manhandling (this time in the fingers of a professional) he confirmed that I did indeed have not only a varicocele on the left side (more common), but also to a lesser degree on the right. He also "listened" with a doppler as he had me bear down, and you could definately hear the backflow of blood. So...I was scheduled for surgery at my request. I forget what the % chance of successfully improving sperm count/quality is but if I recall it was around 50-60%. I'll take those odds anyday if it allows us to actually have some return to normalcy (sex life, romance, pregnancy the old-fashioned way, the chance to bring copulation out of the test-tube and back into the bedroom/countertop/washing machine/etc.)
I went to the outpatient surgery center, was prepped, and went into surgery under general anesthesia, unconscious, but not intubated. The procedure took about 2 hours, and then I woke up, no worse for the wear. They prescibed me Percocet, which I didn't need, although I was quite painful and out of commission for a good 3 days afterward (I do have a high pain threshhold, but I was quite uncomfortable once the anesthetics wore off). In terms of work...well, I was told I would be able to return to work the next day... let's just say maybe if you work from home and can lay on the couch, muttering out commands to subordinates via a webcam while writhing in pain, or something similar to that. There was no way I was doing any physical labor the following day. I'm a firefighter and had to work on that Monday following surgery (Friday), I was ok by then, but I'm still sore around the suture sites even now (one week later). We had a pretty substantial fire that Wednesday night, which I was a participant in physically, and I had no problems, but again the sites are still sore. After the holiday I will call the MD and ask him if the steady pain is normal. The sutures will dissolve, but I don't think they have yet, at least not entirely.
Apparently, like you stated, it takes at least 6 months for full recovery, and sperm improvement (hopefully). I hope this helps. It is obviously a personally choice, but I'm glad I had the procedure. My wife is currently pregnant following a successful IVF (after several unsuccessful IVF/IUI's) so we're very excited. We have been able to get her issues tweaked, so if this surgery corrects (or improves) my on-again/off-again sperm maybe we will be able to have our next child without so much intervention. I just hope it works...it would be nice to be normal again. :o)
Please don't hesistate to contact me if you have any further questions.
Hang in there, and good luck.
Jeff
reply
|
