By Brain Doctor on July 6th, 2008
Ten Reasons Not to Have a Vasectomy
Issues to consider before choosing to have a vasectomy. It is permanent and one should know about the risk of chronic pain prior to the procedure.
- The risk of chronic genital pain – Approximately 15% of men develop chronic testicular pain due to vasectomy. For about 2% to 6%, this pain is severe and can be sexually disabling.
- Post-vasectomy pain sydrome is difficult to treat and the options can involve more surgery (vasectomy reversal) which are not always effective in relieving the pain.
- The pain symptoms can arise years after the procedure and can involove testicular pain, pain on ejaculation, pain on erection, and obviously can affect sexual function or enjoyment of sex.
- You may develop symptoms other than pain that diminish sexual enjoyment, such as decrease in ejaculatory force or volume, or decrease in the pleasure or intensity of orgasm. It is hard to link a reference for these symptoms, you have to go to online forums filled with post-vasectomy men to read these complaints. Unfortunately these forums are not that hard to find. See this thread.
- Vasectomy is essentially irreversible. While there is a surgery available to re-connect the vas deferens (the tubes that are cut), it costs $4000 to $12,000 and is generally not covered by insurance. In addition, it is not always effective in returning fertility or treating post-vasectomy pain.
- The incidence of regret: Regret varies from under five percent to over ten percent depending on what study you read. Young men later regret not being able to father children, married then divorced men have regret regarding not being able to start a new family after divorce, men with chronic pain have regret and frequently feel vasectomy was the worst decision they ever made. Up to 2.5% of vasectomized males seek reversal to regain fertility and 1% seek reversal due to pain.
- Psychological effects of vasectomy can include an increase in “masculine behavior” to compensate for feeling emasculated or an increase in relationship problems (especially if the couple was not in agreement about the procedure). It has been suggested that on a deeper level, sterilization reactivates castration anxiety, represents self-punishment, or is imposed by “castrating women.”
- If you develop post-vasectomy pain symptoms, it can affect your ability to participate actively in sports and other vigorous activities
- Since post-vasectomy pain is rare, it can be difficult to find effective treatment and you may run into empathic failure on the part of others. In addition, the problem is such that many men do not feel comfortable talking about the problem and many non-medical people don’t feel comfortable hearing about it either. This can lead to isolation and depression.
- Inadequate informed consent regarding vasectomy is common. Check here for more information on post-vasectomy pain issues or to access links to vasectomy information websites prior to the procedure. One should not choose a permanent solution for ending fertility before reading about the procedure in depth.
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Eric | Dec 17, 2008 | Reply
There is one big reason why a man shouldn’t get a vasectomy: There is a reasonable chance he will develop constant chronic pain. It happened to me. The vasectomy was by far the biggest mistake I have ever made.
If you are considering getting one, my advise is absolutely do not. The odds of developing persistant pain is on the order of 0.1-2%. If you think those are small odds, would you get on a plane that had a 1% of crashing into a mountain? I really don’t care what the ‘odds’ are, if you do develop Post-vas pain, your life will be miserable.