Sudden pain from pump sucking other stuff

I have heard people talk about pumps sucking the testicles. That is what it feels like, but my testicles seem to be safely hanging in the scrotum away from the cyclinder as far as I can tell.

This just began happening this week, and I have been using the pump off-and-on for over a year. It happened Sunday. It did NOT happen Monday. Then it happened again Tuesday.

Essentially as soon as the vacuum increases above about 8 kpa or 2.5 inhg there is a sudden pain like something getting sucked into the cylinder, so I must immediately release the vacuum. As soon as it begins happening it continues to happen and I can’t use the pump that day.

Normally I have been using a vacuum of about 25 kpa or 7.5 inhg for intervals totally 20 minutes without any problem. I don’t understand this.

I wanted to share an idea that occurred to me yesterday - possible beginning of a hernia?

I just searched and found this thread (see post #5)
Hernia caused by PE?

I am not certain if that is my problem, but I am going to switch back to exclusively using the extender for a month or so. Then I will try the pump for longer duration and lower vacuum to see what happens. I think I was using 25 kpa (7 inhg) for several minute intervals. That was probably too high.

That’s just my suspicion.

Could be a spermatic cord slack enough to get pinched between the tube and the pelvic bone.

As a check, you can try pulling your balls down to stretch the cords as you start pumping.

Hmmm, thanks, that is worth a try. I forgot to mention that I have a cyclinder with a wide flange in case that matters. I thought the wide flange would be better for a beginner like me.

The wide flange is good, but it can still pinch stuff if it gets between the flange and the bone.

That’s a common occurrence for me too. It’s all the more superficial stuff that gets pinched and pulled on. You have to cut back to not make it a chronic thing.

Having silicone, like sleeves or the sold "silicone adapters" around the base can help. But at some intensities the cords and veins etc. Are the first things that start to ache.

I was thinking about that cushion idea. For me it’s not an ache, but just a sudden excrutiating pain. I can be going through the pump routine and then increase the vacuum very slightly when suddenly it feels like my testicle is being crushed and I essentially rip the cylinder off to stop the pain. My electric pump has a button to release the vacuum, but I can never remember to use it due to the pain, so I just pull the cylinder off my body instinctually.

The weird thing is that I don’t think it is actually sucking my testicle into the tube, but it feels like it.

I tried your suggestion of pulling the testicles down occasionally last night, and I also increased the vacuum very slowly over 30 minutes from 5 up to 20 kpa (7.5 inhg). Then I did short intervals of 20 kpa for another 30 minutes or so.

So far so good.

Did you feel a pain similar to what you experience inside the pump?

Last night I only experienced the mild pain of being stretched. Usually when I initially increase the vacuum there is some mild pain of being stretched and it goes away in a few minutes at that vacuum.

The original problem was a pain like having my testicle squashed suddenly, but I think the testicle was still outside the cylinder. Maybe the pump suddenly pulled the testicle towards the flange of the cyclinder and that squashed the testicle. Each time it happened I did not have time to see what was happening, because it hurt so much. I just immediately pulled the cylinder off instinctually.

It seems that you have identified the cause of the pain. However, I wonder: Have you ever suffered from varicocele?

I have never been diagnosed with that, but sometimes I can feel a slight protrusion on one of the testicles when I massage them. That protrusion could possibly be a dilated vein, but I don’t know. I massage the testicles almost every day in an effort to make them larger, so I notice things like that by touch.

The images I have seen on the internet appear to be bulges in the scrotum which are comparable in size to an entire testicle. I have never experienced anything like that. The protrusions I notice are more like having a piece of string or a pea laying against the side of the testicle, and they aren’t present all the time.

During my pumping session last night, I noticed a tendency for excess skin to get pulled into the pump and kind of folded against itself at the beginning of the sucking. As the pressure increases maybe this folded-up loose skin gets pinched against itself? Pulling the scrotum down during the pumping seems to help a lot. (I think the excess skin might get sucked into the cyclinder at the beginning because the penis has not swelled in girth yet to fill-up the base of the cylinder.)