Same ole concern

Men's health
1

Hey guys. Same issue as you've heard a thousand times. I've read countless postings about post vasectomy issues but I figure each case is unique.

I'm stressed as hell because I had my vasectomy 5+ months ago. Uneventful and I've felt fine up until about 7 days ago. Pulling and pinching pain and discomfort in groin area, under scrotum and lower abdomen. Nothing TOO extreme and more discomfort than pain most of the time. Today it was definitely more noticeable. Oddly enough, very little if any discomfort in testical, vas deferens, or epididimus. But I find myself babying my nuts now and it's like I don't want to exert myself in fear that something might get worse.

I totally get that PVPS can be excruciating so I don't want to come off as whining about this setback. I know it could be worse but that's mostly my concern. That I was good for so long and now having this trouble, and it leading to more severe issues.

I scheduled a follow up in 2 weeks so I'll have to sweat it out till then. Anybody have a similar experience?

Appreciate any feedback.

2

PVPS can't be fixed and the docs will probably deny it. They will probably insist on antibiotics but ask them for a urine test as that will confirm no infection.

I've tried surgery, injections and drugs. None of it helps. Even on testosterone replacement now.

Biggest mistake of my life getting the snip

3

Hi 

What you've described does have a very familiar sound to it but that isn't to say it is PVP / PVPS so don't go stressing over something that is just a possibility.

Ouchy above is right that, unless you have a Dr that is totally on ball, the 1st thing you might be faced with is PVP doesn't exist or too small a risk for you to worry about and the next thing they will suggest is it is an infection.

Don't forget at this stage it could very well be an infection, hence saying don't go stressing too much yet.

Again though Oucy is right if the Dr comes up with infection ASK for a urine test as well! Depending on your surgery it might take a few  days for results or you might get it right away. In the few days you could begin the course of antibiotics.

If it is an infection then infections in that area can be a swine to get rid of anyway, so you might find that a 2nd course of antibiotics might be required and don't be takeb aback by the type as the strength required is usually the variant that they use to treat an STD.

If it isn't an infection then you could be looking at injury very recently, very vigorous sex or sporting injury for example, and they will settle down. As mentioned this is a very bad area to get hurt / infections in as pain is horrible!

If you haven't had an injury and it isn't an infection then the symptoms do appear to point towards PVPS. Don't listen to anyone who tells you it can be easily treated with meds, quite simply it cannot. If you're lucky they will help control pain to a degree that you can live with.

Surgical options have helped some people but these carry their own risks. Reversal can help lower the pain dramtically, not guaranteed though, and the NHS, although they cuased the problem, will not fund the reversal leaving you to find £2k+.

Best option would be epidydectomy - they remove the epidyidymus. Again this can help some but in my case (and I think Ouchy's) it made pain worse, a lot worse.

I've been on so many meds that I became a Zombie, quite literally at one point. They started with the easy stuff like paracetamol / codeine script strength and then went thru many others. For 3 years I ended up morphine and they've now weaned me off that and have put me on,. of all things, methadone. Have to be honest I'm looking at an easy 70% reduction in pain with just odd spikes. Makes life more bearable and liveable again :-)

Other areas took a big hit and I am still on testosterone replacement, again like Ouchy.

To be honest sod waiting for the follow up, try and get to see your GP sooner, mind you that might be longer than the two weeks knowing the NHS, and get the GP to get the urine test / infection ball rolling 

As I say at this point, yes it is painful, don't worry or stress too much ok. There are a few things it could be yet. Let us know how you get on ok.

Cheers

Marc

4

Thanks guys for reply. Thanks Marc.

A few follow up questions. At this stage, I wouldn't even go so far as to say I'm in pain. (And I fully get that it could be so, SO much worse and I feel for anyone who's truly suffering.) But the factors that are really confusing to me is that

1. none of the tingles/pulling/punches/discomfort comes from my testicles or epididymis. I'm certain of this. I even try to carefully reproduce the sensations and pinches by grabbing and poking but my testicles are not the problem. It's more like the "strings" and wiring inside my lower abdomen are being tugged and pinched.

2. my other concern is that if it's NOT infection, why would I be absolutely fine for 5 months after the snip, then wake up one week with this pulling feeling (but no real pain in my testicles/epididymis.)? Although PVPS isn't fully understood, shouldn't I at least have mild pain/discomfort in my testicles as well?

Thanks for the help.

db

5

Ok nerve damage pain does not always appear where the damage actually is...you might damage a nerve in lower leg but back could hurt for example. So to some degree that is the problem with nerve pain..identifying where the real is half the time. The official term is referred pain I think.

I get pain in groin, leg & abdomen area. If you were to take a dinner plate with testciles about centre of the plate then that diameter is where I can get / feel pain...yet is was my testicles that were the real affected area...so I can feel pain in my legs, just below tummy and in testicles...nerve pain can be everywhere from one issue.

Or I may have little pain in the tetsticles themselves but a hell of a pain in the groin area especially towards the rear base of the srotum.

Luckily I don't get that wide diamater of pain all the time and it does mainly reside in the groin & testicles , but yes abdomen / legs can and do feel pain from a groin injury.

Don't try and replicate by pulling and prodding or pinching, you really really won't do yourself any favours at all.

Infections can come on at any time, within a few days, within a a single sleep cycle or even within minutes with some nasties (anyone who has had really bad food poisoning, an infection, will tell you they felt in within a very very short time of eating the food) - so it really is possible to be fine one minute and pick up summat like an infection in the epidydymus over night.

If you meant though could PVP suddenly kick in overnight after 5 months? Sadly the answer is yes. No Dr alive knows the trigger for it (whcih is why they can never resolve it! - what idiot and sadist performs an operation without telling the patient it is impossible to rectify if it goes wrong!?!

So yes, sorry you could go to bed 100% fine one night and wake up in pain next day. A lot of the cases I have read about that occur late on seem to appear to have happened after sex or a knock in the groin region. The only thing the Dr's can say with a degree of certainty is that if you don't get PVP within 10yrs then you are clear. Why it suddenly stops being a risk at 10yrs I have no idea, perhaps that far down the line men don't associate pain in the groin with the snip and the Dr can't / won't make that call and it goes undiagnosed as PVP but logged as something else. I somehow guess Dr's would't have told you that either.

It would be odd for PVP to produce no pain in testicles at all, at times it can hurt to touch or have tight fitting briefs on, so if you are getting groin pain but no testicle pain I'd not worry too much and still consider infection to be a likely call.

Ask as many Q's as you want and when you want.

Like I said before try not to worry too much ok, worrying will only make you notice pain a lot more (and that is genuine;y medically true as well).

You need to get to Drs to find out infection or not and to get some decent pain relief inside.

6

All good info and I understand. I'm trying not to jump to conflclusions and haven't ruled out an inguinal hernia. (I exercise regularly and had been working out harder since Dec.)

One more question, so if it's possible to have PVP appear months or years down the road, is it also possible to have mild discomfoet such as this but it never really get any worse? Also, are there any testimonies of PVP subsiding or lessening with no real intervention? (It just seams that everything Ive read till now is like: "yep, if there's pain, it's likely PVP and there's nothing they can do so get ready." And that just seems unlikely....

db

7

Hiya

Sorry for late reply.

Great news about not jumping to conclusions, the stress that can cause really isn't worth it trust me :-)

In answer to your question...yes.

Perfectly possible to have very low grade continuous pain and it not get any worse at all - may peak at times or it may not - but certainly possible for it just to rumble along with mild discomfort.

There are many cases of PVP subsisding but againt the extent of the problem the numbers themselves are low.

Some men find a reversal can help lessen the pain and for those it does help they do report noticeable drops in pain. Same goes for epidydectomy really. Think the offical success rates for both procedures when used as a treatment for PvP are broadly the samein terms of outcome.

If it is PvP the truthful answer really is there is little they can do :-( This id down to one main fact. As they have no real idea what actually causes PvP they simply have no idea how to fully rectify it.

What they do rely on is (in broadly the following order):

1. Time - in the hope it will lessen over time- it won't & that is the problem. What tends to happen is it will settle down to a pretty regular cyclic pattern - so if you get low grade pain you'll typically always get a really low grede ache in the background with cyclic spikes of when pain increases / spikes. Similarly if you get "medium" amounts of pain it will settle to a regular thing with it going low (not goin) and then spiking back up to the "medium" highs or higher. If you get severe pain it will settle down in to pretty crap pain most of the time with crippling bouts.

2. They further rely on / hope that Pain Management intervention and techniques will work. Sadly with the fractured non holistic appraoch the NHS operates to with regards management of pain - this doesn't really help a lot of people and they find it to simply be a taling shop whereby the "specialist" will throw different pain killers at the problm in the hope of easing it. Many find they cannot function on the level of meds and have to decide between pain relief or job

3. They rely ultra heavily on medication & drugs - for low grade pain this isn't too bad and some men will get way with popping brufen every day, others will be up a step and need, say , tramadol. Some will not benefit from tramadol etc so they then try gabapentin or pregabalin. For some this does provide relief. For those it doesn't or who get lots of breakthrough pain they start then bringing out the heavy guns and morphine comes in to play...very addictive and crap side effects.

Taking any medication long term doesn't exactly do your body any favours, so you can see the other problem PvP throws up...whilst you lessen the pain you really are damaging the rest of your system with contnued long term use of pain meds.

4. Surgical interventions - but each surgery has inherent risks of its own. It can help ease the problem, it can make no difference at all or it can really make things worse. Not too mention in the case of reversal that too can trigger PVP so you're taking a double chance with that.

Reality is they can try to minimise the pain it is wet finger stuff and as a result, as each person is unique, they will fall in to their own (i)regular pattern where it may settle to a lower than usual level of pain (but always be there) and then spike.

It seems unlikely as you say but that's becuase we always like to think they can cure things, but to cure something you need to know what causes it.

There is some evidence out there that those who participate in sport (and I suppose you could include working out in that) are suceptible to groin injury through abductor muscle injury and of course with the bodies abillity to create hell with referred pain in a sportsperson case this area coudl be the culprit and not the immediate association with the snip & PVP - I'm not a medic so that is only conjecture by the research has been done with regards groin ijury & abductor muscles and knowing ho wpain pain can refer it is a possible (better) scenario.

Rather tha put a link here which will cause this post to go in to hold whilst they figure out if link is ok etc if you do a search for (on google)

Groin Injuries in Sports Medicine

then look for the result from ncbi nlm nih gov - should be in the first 3 results.

You can have a read of one the reports - as I said I mention it because you've id'd you work out and therefore might be susceptible to a groin ijnury from that and as the referred pain may produce similar symptoms that or a hernia may be moire likely - in other words more to put your mind away from the path of PvP :-)

cheers and take care

Marc