Hydrocele - What you should know

I decided after being diagnosed with a Hydrocele that I should do a quick writeup for lpsg and thunders.

What it Is
A hydrocele is a buildup of wattery fuid around the testicles. Sometimes it is just one, other times it is both. The buildup is painless and generally is not dangerous. The scrotum and/or groin will slowly swell. There are two types of hydroceles: a Congenital hydrocele develops at birth while a aquired hydrocele develops later in life. Aquired hydroceles are most common in men over 40, it occurs in 1-2% of men.

How it Happens
When the testicals migrate from the abdominal cavity to the scrotum a small piece of abdominal lining goes with the testicals. Generally this lining wears away and leaves the testicals in the scrotum, this generally closes within the first two years of life. With a hydrocele the closing of this is delayed or does not happen. If this does not close abdominal fluid slowly fills the space and causes the swelling. Aquired Hydroceles sometimes result form an injury to the groin area.

Symtoms
Some symtoms of a hydrocele are swelling, the swelling:
-is painless
-may be soft or firm
-cannot be reduced by position changes
-changes size through course of day, small in morning large at night
-translucent, light will shine through it.
If painful it is more likely a hernia and you should see a doctor right away.

Diagnosis
My urologist knew as soon as he saw my swelling that I had a hydrocele. It is generally obvious because of the swelling. Light is used to check for hernias. If light shines through it is a hydrocele, otherwise it is a hernia. I am scheduled for a followup appointment that will include an ultrasound to double check for hernias or other things.

Treatment
If the hydrocele is an aquired one it is generally taken care of with surgery to avoid the risk of a hernia. For congenital hydroceles if they do not go away within two years surgery is used.

Surgery
The surgery is a simple outpatient operation. First a genreal anesthesia is given to numb the area. Then a small incision is made in the groin on the side with the hyrdocele. The surgeon will remove the fluid from the sac and removes it. Stitches are used to strengthen the area and to prevent the hydrocele from reforming. Sometimes the other testical will be inspected as well to make sure there is nothing present. After that you are stitched up and free to go home.
After the surgery the area must be cleaned daily to avoid risk of infection. You should also watch for any swelling, fever, etc that could indicate a complication. It is also likely that a medication wil be given to help with any post-op pain that you have. My urologist says that it takes about 6 weeks to heal fully and that i should avoid strenuous activity and heavy lifting for that time if possible.

Conclusion
So thats it. If you see swelling, see the doc. I’m looking forward to having this thing removed so I don’t show a bulge in everything I wear. If you have any questions ask here or pm me and I’ll get back to you asap.

Thanks for adding that information, Blake.

Not the pleasantest way to get big balls. :)

Thank you for sharing that information with the board, BlakeT. I hope you have a speedy and comfortable recovery post-op.

Thank you for the kind words Hung.

I just returned from the Doc office. Had a ultrasound to look for anything out of the ordinary, didn’t find anything. Then had a follow-up appointment with my doc. We discussed the options. I had three options:

- Leave as is, there is a possibility of it going away.
- Drain the fluid with a syringe then inject something to cause scarring which is supposed to prevent re-accurance. This is the most painful of the options.
- Make a small incision in the groin. Drain the fluid from the effected tesiticle/s. Then make several small slits in the sac the fluid came from, not the actual scrotum the sac inside that surrounds the testicle. The are with the slits will then be stitches and attached to the back of the testicle. This is the most common, has the least pain and fastest recovery time.

I went with the third option. My operation is scheduled for early february. I’ll keep you updated.

With the third option, do you have drains placed temporarily or is the draining done via the initial incision with the expectation that no more draining will be necessary?

The third option everything is done right there on the operating table. I will be given a local anethesia which will essentially numb the entire area. He will be operating on both testicles because there is some hydrocele showing the left. So once I leave the operation room I will be done with all draining, stitching, etc.

Had my operation a few hours ago and figured I would do a little update here.

Th eoperation last a little over 1 hour and both sides were fixed. It was done under general anethisia. I am on cipro, antibiotic. Was given no pain meds which suprised me. So far the pain is very little. Its more of sore than pain. I will be icing it all day 15/15 on/off until I go to bed.

I have nothing to do today so I’ll be on here a lot I think. If anyone has questions ask me.

If you have had a vasectomy, is the pain similar to that?

I think it would be similar. One funny thing is they shaved both balls and most of my groin. They left a 1-5 inch wide patch right above my penis unshaved…no idea why. Wish I could have just had them shave the entire thing while they were down there

Hope you heal fast, Blake.

Well this will be my 1 week post op follow up. I have an appointment tommorow for post op follow up. The pain is slowly decreasing but most of the swelling is staying. From the research I have done it looks like the swelling could last up to one month after the operations…which sucks. The incisions have remained clean and infection free and have very little discharge now. The area is still slightly sensitive to touch but not nearly what it was a few days ago. I have spent the last week laying on the couch watching movies with ice applied about half the time. I find walking painful, mostly because of the swelling but with proper support it is bearable. I MIGHT be returning to classes friday but all my classes are on the 3rd floor of buildings so I may wait until monday. I look foward to the swelling dissapering so I can see the results. If anyone has questions ask/pm or whatever.

Oh and Vater that avatar is HOT

Thanks - Alessandra Ambrosio is fucktastic.

The operation was two weeks ago and the swelling finally decreased 4 days ago, roughly one and a half weeks after the operation. I had a lot more swelling than the doctor had expected, about 2-3 times more swelling than expected. My post op check up which should have taken 15 minutes turned into a hour day in the hospital. When I showed the swelling to my doctor he said “Holy Shit, I’m going to order and ultrasound of that”. I knew it was going to be a long day at that point. So I had and ultrasound of it with 3 ultrasound techs and 4 doctors looking on because no one had ever seen this much swelling and it made it hard to see stuff. They thought they saw signs of a hernia though so the doc ordered a CT scan. CT scan went good but I had to stand on my own for 5 minutes to allow the iodine contrast they inject into the blood stream to work its way down the the swelling. This was VERY painful, not fun. The ultrasound ended up showing that there was no hernia, which was nice to know. It did show however that the swelling was putting a lot of pressure on my bladder and also making it hard to urinate (I could have told them that) but there was nothing wrong other than that. One cool thing though, I was able to view the ct scan and it was from my upper chest to knees. I was able to slowly view all of my body and it was really cool. Also able to see a cross sectional view of my penis and was able to see all the diferent parts and stuff.

Ok back to the update. I still have some swelling but it is not much and not very noticable. I am using a wheel chair to get around campus becuase walking is still uncomfortable. The stitches are the type that come out on their own…or at least they are supposed to. There are 3-4 still in that I will be removing myself this weekend…not looking forward to that. I am taking 4-6 motrim a day to help with the swelling as well as mild pain relief. I am hoping to be out of the wheel chair by the end of next week and be walking but we’ll see how that goes.

I am really starting to miss PE/masterbation and really miss sex. My buddies threw my a get well soon party last night and it was a great turnout but I had to turn down sex because I didn’t want to mess anything up in the healing.

As always if you have questions ask and I’ll reply as soon as I see it.

5 week update. I am walking and have very little pain unless I walk for extended periods of time. Saw the doctor this morning and he said it looked great. I removed the stitches a week from tomorrow (saturday) and that helped a lot. The stitches tended to get caught on boxers, sweats, whatever I wore.

I have before and after pics in my gallery on LPSG under username BJT if anyone in interested in seeing the results. There is a VERY noticable difference in size, comfort sitting, bulge, etc. I am very happy with the results and am glad I had it taken care of. Now I won’t be worried about what they think when they see my testicles when I drop my pants :)