Hi guys,
Thought I’d post here and see if anyone has any tips or advice.
I’m late 20’s, fit and active and no health concerns (part of my job requires passing a strict medical assessment) and had a hydrocele for a few years now. I went to see my GP about it and ended up getting the surgery to have it corrected. During the healing time, it got infected about a week after the procedure, but I got prescribed a treatment course and completed that and carried on with the healing process.
Approximately one month after the surgery, I was expecting to see results but I was noticing that my testicle was sitting really high and not descending in height. It looked and felt like it was sewn to the scrotum. I checked various forums like this because I was beginning to get concerned. To put it into perspective, the operated testicle sits right below the base of my penis and the other testicle moves up and down normally. I can fit my entire finger horizontally between the bottom of the operated testicle and the normal testicle’s top. It looks ridiculous but it’s the physical aspect that concerns me most.
I phoned my GP and he was busy, so I spoke to a female GP who I explained the situation to. Her comments were less than useful and by her comments, it was clear and very obvious that she didn’t know what I was meaning by the testicle not moving. She even claimed that one testicle is supposed to sit a little higher than the other so it’s nothing to worry about. I knew fine well that she wasn’t getting what I was saying. She even suggested that the connecting Vas Deferens (I had to Google that after the call which freaked me out) may have been cut during the procedure and that was why it was a little higher than normal. But her last words were that it’s too soon to really see anything wrong and to leave it 3 months and check in then. She also suggested I contact the surgeon and get my medical records as without them, it’d be difficult to truly assess what had happened or what was going on with the healing.
I contacted the practice where the surgeon practiced (I was an outpatient to another health board) and he was supposed to phone me before Christmas. I gave my name and number and said that I was working from home but I’d step away to answer his call as this was an important issue to me.
He never ended up calling me and I had to call him again in January when places opened up again. He said he had never heard of what I was describing before and that due to covid, he would personally write to the urology consultants at my local hospital for me to be seen there. I also scheduled an appointment with my GP around the same time, though he was busy for the next few weeks, so instead I saw one of his male colleagues who acknowledged the testicle was significantly affecting my life. He put me on the urgent waiting list for a scan.
I attended the scan and just my luck, it was quite cold outside, which made the scan process difficult with a tight scrotum as it doesn’t look bad when the scrotum lifts the other testicle up. There is still a big height difference but not as bad as when it’s warm and more flexibility. The scan showed a bit of extra scar tissue but nothing that would cause enough to be concerning. I was disappointed because I’d rather much have found what was causing it because then there would be a solution to my problem.
My GP phoned me a few weeks after to talk about the results and said that there was nothing from the scans that concerned him and that it’s best that we wait for the urology consultants to take a look as they’re specialised in this area and he is limited on his advice.
I left it a few weeks and spoke to my girlfriend about it. She is a medical student and was able to speak to urology consultants at the hospital she was doing a placement at. She was told that the infection may have caused the testicle scar tissue to bond with the scrotum tissue. To break that scar tissue would require more surgery, or the tissue could be broken down by rubbing. The rubbing wasn’t very well explained, so I gave it a try, trying to be as rigorous as I could withstand, but it leaves me with a high degree of pain and discomfort for days after.
A few more weeks passed and I phoned my GP to express my concern about the length of time it is taking. I even mentioned one of these forums where I read that a guy was in a very similar position to what I was in and he essentially waited too long to get his testicle ‘unstuck’ and was therefore told that there was nothing that could now be done. I posed the question to him about rubbing and whether that would work, or even that when I list the shaft of my penis, the operated testicle moves further up, suggesting that there’s something connecting the two (the other non-operated testicle doesn’t move and floats about the scrotum as normal). I suggested gently holding a finger over the top of the operated testicle and pulling the shaft of my penis up and seeing if that put pressure on whatever was connecting the two together, perhaps helping break down any connecting tissue. He warned me against doing anything that may cause permanent damage. He did say that there may be other non-invasive treatments to breakdown the internal scar tissue, though he would have to go away and research that, and that he didn’t know for certain but he knows the right people to ask who would know. That was a few weeks ago and I’ve still not heard anything back yet.
I should add that the height of the testicle is really giving me a load of problems. I can’t sleep on my front any more because the testicle doesn’t move and so gets squashed if I lay flat, and then I get that sicky feeling in my stomach. I have woken up by the sicky feeling and it’s horrible. I ended up sleeping on the sofa since about a week after the procedure was done because I could raise my leg and wedge my left knee between the seat cushion and the back cushion and that way my hips would be ever so slightly elevated and I could get a good night’s sleep. Other aspects of my life that have been affected are an inability to exercise due to the testicle location rubbing off my thigh repeatedly. Sitting down normally is challenging because the testicle overlaps my thigh and pulls on the scrotum skin. Sex with my girlfriend has been incredibly challenging because of the location of the testicle and repeated knocking of the testicle kills an erection. Even masturbation is difficult now. I went for a walk along the beach a month or so ago, nothing strenuous, but I was in physical pain and discomfort for 3 days after it.
This issue has caused my girlfriend and I to argue a lot. She is aware of my mental health really taking a kicking. I’ve admitted to her that I don’t feel like I’m living any more, more existing. I don’t feel like I am myself because I’m unable to do many of the things I would normally do. I also feel full of self-hate because I went to see the GP and instigated this whole procedure. I won’t go into detail here, but I’ve just spent the entire weekend in bed with the curtains shut and lights off, with some very alarming and dangerous thoughts going round and round in my head. I feel like I had a really good life before and I have ruined that and I’m not too big to admit that I am scared of being told that there’s nothing that can be done and that invasive surgery would be too risky, so essentially I should learn to live with it.
Just wondering if anyone else is or has been in a similar position and if you have any advice?