Aaron’s experience: My 1 hour and 20 min vasectomy

It’s been just over a day since I’ve had my vasectomy and I thought I’d relate my story.

I and my wife decided a vasectomy was the best long-term choice for us. We went to an ob/gyn and she said that there would be a 10-20% chance that if we had a baby it would have severe problems. I had a consultation with my doctor and made an appointment to have a bilateral vasectomy about two weeks later.

The appointment was for 4:10 pm and I took 15mg of valium about 45 minutes before the appointment (If your doctor doesn’t offer this – ask!). We arrived a bit before 4:00 pm and I was on the table about 4:30. The procedure began and the doctor began to freeze the area and waited a minute and then started making the incision. The area wasn’t quite frozen so he had to refreeze. After he made the incision about 1cm, he then began to try to dislodge the vas. That took about 15 minutes as my right testicle is on a rather short tether I guess. It wasn’t extremely painful, but it caused some pain mostly in my upper abdomen, kinda like a tugging motion. Somewhere during this, he hit a tiny artery (I still don’t know how) and had to repair that with four stitches.

After the right side was finished he switched to the left side and it went a bit better. It took a while for the doctor to get a good grip on the vas after that it went pretty well except for more bleeding. After the last vas was snipped, cauterized, and tied we were finished they put on a couple of butterfly bandages. We left and headed home at about 6 pm. The ride home wasn’t so bad except for the bumps. I took two Vicodins and went to sleep at about 8 pm. Today I’m feeling pretty good I went to work and did real light stuff for about half a day. All told, outside of running into a few complications and being forced to listen to Nsync during the procedure it wasn’t too bad. I would like to thank others who have submitted their stories, as several times I knew what was going to happen and about how it would feel.

I would also like to pass on a few suggestions that helped me:

1. Call ahead and make sure the doctor is running on time.
2. Take the last appointment of the day.
3. Ask for meds to take about 45 minutes before the procedure (valium was great).
4. Have some things ready for you to do when you get home. I.E. video games, bible, soft chair for browsing the internet.
5. Get an Athletic Supporter that’s one size lower than what you usually wear. Get one that has a pouch for a cup. Buy two re-freezable ice packs.

Submitted by Aaron