Large Lump and Pain Following Vasectomy

i had mine snipped about 4 years ago and i dont remember any lump, i however do remember that it took three full months to have a day when it did not bother me. others i knew said they were fine in a week. i have had a dull burning feeling for a very short time, probably three times this year (10 seconds). it was avout 20 times the first two years( for a couple of minutes at first). EVERYBODY heals differently, i was unfortunately one who did not heal so quick. it will work itself out but it will take time. Also, my shitty dr tried telling me i had an infection that was ongoing for the duration of my troubles. a simple, "some people heal very slowly," would have saved countless days of looking and stressing out on line. DO NOT look online of WHAT might be wrong, that was the worst thing i did. an ocassional uncomfortable feeling a few times a year now beats having to raise an unplanned child!

Hi, I'm the one who suggested the herbs. Sorry I dont remember the exact doses. What I do remember is I purchased the strongest ones I could find (for best value) via ebay. Then I initially began with one tablet of each per day, and increased the dose every second day just to make sure there was no side effect. Remember they can affect other medications, like blood thinners.

The maximum dose I had was about 3 tablets of EACH in a 24hr period. Nothing really happened until I reached the maximum dose, and within weeks it went from:

( ) to ( )

Before use of these herbs, there was almost no size change in 3 whole months. And the doc only said "wait and take anti inflammatories".

I wish you, your husband, and his balls the best. It will be scary for him. So perhaps make it worth his while when his sacks are all better.

Also try to avoid herbs from china. They usually arent the best quality. Not always the case, but that's at least what I've usually found. But even if you buy herbs from your local shop, often they're made in china. Everything is from china. Probably my balls were too. That's why they were lemons.

Day 14:
Today is the first morning I can comfortably call "comfortable"! I haven't taken any pain killers all night or since I woke up, and there is still a dull ache in my lower pelvis but it is fine (considering the pain I've been through!). I can now walk without doing The John Wayne.
My vasectomy was two weeks ago. Similar experience to many I have read here. I want to dilute the horror stories with mine which is like others, a vasectomy "with complications" but absolutely rare. We are NOT the norm. And we shouldn't put off men from having what will most likely be a straightforward procedure with minimal side effects.
I will start with my advice to those about to go under the knife: Do not do ANYTHING after surgery. Get your partner to take time off as well to drive you home and to then look after the kids for a few days at least. Get an ice pack on there ASAP and keep it there, as much as possible. For days and days! Keep your feet elevated. Lie on the sofa or bed. And I would suggest telling your boss you MAY be longer than "2-3 days". I'm a landscape gardener and there is no way I would even consider working now, two weeks after surgery (luckily I live in Sweden and I'm on parental leave right now).
Also, do NOT take any anti inflammatory drugs (aspirin, ibuprofen) for at least a week before and a week or two after surgery. They are blood thinners and can limit any blood clotting and scabbing that is needed.

So this is my post-surgery experience:
The actual surgery was fine. The only time I felt any pain was during anaesthetic injections (no worse than injections anywhere else in the body) and a two short sharp pains when the doctor worked on my right nut (may relate to what happened later!). She told me all had gone well and that there would be no more children.

After surgery, I walked to the subway and walked from there to home. Not a far walk for me by any means but I shouldn't have. My son had chicken pox -on home quarantine, and my little daughter hasn't started nursery yet, so all three of my family were home waiting for me. My wife was working (from home on the phone) so I was presented with two hyper kids on entering the door. My daughter hadn't napped yet so I had to strap her to me in the baby carrier and bounce her to sleep (BAD idea). The pressure that her weight and the bouncing put on my nether regions added to my later swelling.
After several hours I had a chance to inspect my package.
I felt fine straight after but by the time the surgery pain relief wore off I was in a lot of pain, and to my horror, everything started to swell up. Now, I know it's normal to experience swelling after any kind of surgery but this was supposedly labelled as "minor surgery"!
"Minor surgery" should be a term reserved for mole removal, small surface epidermal cyst drainage, sutures after a tumble in the playground etc etc. It's not MAJOR surgery as I was happy that I got through it under local anaesthetic, but perhaps it could be labelled something a little less "walk in the park". Because many of us will NOT be walking in any parks, let alone making it off the sofa.
So my balls had swollen up to the size of a small grapefruit. The left side looked less big, and the stitches were neat and tidy. The right, however, was bloated, and the incision was open and bloody-looking despite the stitches. Between the two stitches was a gaping open beak! (My wife and I later named the hematoma on that side Beaky (Wish i could post photos here. It's hilarious)). I quickly covered up the bandage again and thought, "i must rest".
Then the pain kicked in. So I commenced heavy Ibuprofen dosing.
By day 2 I was even more swollen and in pain. Sleep had been impossible so I was grumpy too. More ibuprofen. I consulted my information papers (two sides of photocopied generic vasectomy info. Nothing about swelling or extreme pain. Just the usual "2-3 days off and you're good to go"). The doctor had told me to go to Emergency if I had heavy bleeding in the first 72 hours, and to go back to Urology if an infection appeared after the first week. Nothing about hematomas or black balls. My balls were all bruised and black like someone had been at me with a baseball bat! And the beak on my nut looked like it was trying to talk. I freaked out. So my wife took me back to Urology to show them. They took one look and ushered me away as if I had mental problems. I felt like saying "But these are my BALLS!! And they are growing a face!!!" The small urology team where I went is all female. And they are not the most gentle, sympathetic women I have ever met. I'm sure having seen thousands of men's dangly bits, they now have barely any emotional connection to them. I have a very emotional connection to mine.
I let a week go by and continued ibuprofen and paracetamol combined and kept off my feet as much as a man with small children can. Standing up from lying down would hurt like crazy. Gravity's effect on my swollen sack and the added pressure of blood flowing down there was enough to turn my face pale with pain. The bruising did start to clear up and the scrotal skin started returning to normal colour, which meant I wasn't hemorrhaging blood any more. Neither of my actual testicles hurt at all.
However, I started developing a large lump directly under the incision, a few cm above my right testicle (the one that hurt in surgery). It was firm and extremely painful to touch. And my abdomen was constantly aching that dull kicked-in-the-nuts ache, and it was cramping up on a regular basis. I scoured the net for info and presumed it was some kind of hematoma. It got bigger and harder and more painful. Eventually to the same size as my right nut. So now I had 3 balls?? I told my wife a new ball had grown to compensate and make babies. It was a new mutant hybrid which was growing a bird's face on the side. We named it Beaky. Anyhoot, what I presumed, was that the pressure of the swelling was pushing outward onto the incision wound and preventing it from closing up properly! After a shower, the scab came off and then the now completely open wound wept blood constantly. Not flowing blood but a slow steady seepage enough to soak a plaster in a few hours. I was worried about infection but so far I had no signs. The left ball and incision site was no longer swollen or painful at all. The way it SHOULD be!!
So I went back to Urology (8 days after surgery) to get a second opinion on Beaky and find out whether he would be moving in permanently. Again, I was fobbed off and told all was normal, despite my obvious anger and frustration. "If it is NORMAL then why did I know NOTHING about it beforehand?" She explained something along the lines that she had been doing vasectomies for 25 years, a few times a day, and in all that time she had only ever seen anything like my big bulging beaky ballsack 5 times! My wife later worked it all out that she had done 2712 vasectomies I was probably something like 0.22% of her patients! So I was a rarity! But she seemed absolutely confident that the confirmed hematoma (the hard lump) would get better within another month. She couldn't say exactly why it was there, other than when an anaesthetic injection is administered or when an incision is made it isn't 100% that it won't hit a nerve or blood vessel or delicate tissue. But surely she would have seen any damage done during surgery and let me know what to expect? Apparently not. And the swelling was just swelling and bleeding and clotting after whatever it was in there was hurt or damaged. And the pain in my pelvis was due to a nerve that runs from the balls up through the abdomen.
Anyway. I was relieved to have had SOME form of explanation. I was still angry that a voluntary procedure on my perfectly healthy balls had turned them into a car wreck.
Days went by and the pain did start to subside! But the weeping continued. It would fill a bandage slowly. So I tried pulling the wound together myself using Steristrips to see if it would fuse and scab up that way. But it kept weeping and wouldn't scab, and any form of bandage would just get wet and prevent any drying out! Even lying naked on my back wouldn't help. I eventually read that Ibuprofen is a blood thinner and reduces clotting. I had been taking so much! It had probably aided the hematoma in developing and the weeping. So I stopped taking it. But it takes time for blood systems to normalise so I had to just wait.
Yesterday I gave up all my efforts to stop the bleeding and went back AGAIN to show them Beaky's open "feed me feed me!" mouth. It didn't look good. And I was worried about infection. Basically there was a small hole in my sack!!
This time she actually sighed and said, "what's happened now??". But AGAIN they just told me it was fine and that it would stop bleeding and all close up eventually. The nurse just cleaned it, put micropore over it and then a softer gauze plaster on top. No worry about infection or anything.
I'm not going back again. No way. Each time, the doctor seems to want to squeeze the hematoma! Now that f***ing kills. She shows no mercy!
So now I'm happily confident to just give it time. The lump isn't so painful anymore, and my balls are not so massive. I will report again with an update soon.
But guys! These complications are RARE. Very rare!!
Right now I'm not regretting vasectomy, but frustrated at the lack of official information offered regarding rare complications. If the fertility test shows it hasn't worked though... Right now I'm pretty sure I won't be going under the knife again!
Sorry I wrote so much.

Day 14:  Today is the first morning I can comfortably call "comfortable"! I haven't taken any pain killers all night or since I woke up, and there is still a dull ache in my lower pelvis but it is fine (considering the pain I've been through!). I can now walk without doing The John Wayne.  My vasectomy was two weeks ago. Similar experience to many I have read here. I want to dilute the horror stories with mine which is like others, a vasectomy "with complications" but absolutely rare. We are NOT the norm. And we shouldn't put off men from having what will most likely be a straightforward procedure with minimal side effects. 

I will start with my advice to those about to go under the knife: Do not do ANYTHING after surgery. Get your partner to take time off as well to drive you home and to then look after the kids for a few days at least. Get an ice pack on there ASAP and keep it there, as much as possible. For days and days! Keep your feet elevated. Lie on the sofa or bed. And I would suggest telling your boss you MAY be longer than "2-3 days". I'm a landscape gardener and there is no way I would even consider working now, two weeks after surgery (luckily I live in Sweden and I'm on parental leave right now).  Also, do NOT take any anti inflammatory drugs (aspirin, ibuprofen) for at least a week before and a week or two after surgery. They are blood thinners and can limit any blood clotting and scabbing that is needed. 

So this is my post-surgery experience:  The actual surgery was fine. The only time I felt any pain was during anaesthetic injections (no worse than injections anywhere else in the body) and a two short sharp pains when the doctor worked on my right nut (may relate to what happened later!). She told me all had gone well and that there would be no more children. 

After surgery, I walked to the subway and walked from there to home. Not a far walk for me by any means but I shouldn't have. My son had chicken pox -on home quarantine, and my little daughter hasn't started nursery yet, so all three of my family were home waiting for me. My wife was working (from home on the phone) so I was presented with two hyper kids on entering the door. My daughter hadn't napped yet so I had to strap her to me in the baby carrier and bounce her to sleep (BAD idea). The pressure that her weight and the bouncing put on my nether regions added to my later swelling.  After several hours I had a chance to inspect my package.  I felt fine straight after but by the time the surgery pain relief wore off I was in a lot of pain, and to my horror, everything started to swell up. Now, I know it's normal to experience swelling after any kind of surgery but this was supposedly labelled as "minor surgery"!  "Minor surgery" should be a term reserved for mole removal, small surface epidermal cyst drainage, sutures after a tumble in the playground etc etc. It's not MAJOR surgery as I was happy that I got through it under local anaesthetic, but perhaps it could be labelled something a little less "walk in the park". Because many of us will NOT be walking in any parks, let alone making it off the sofa.  So my balls had swollen up to the size of a small grapefruit. The left side looked less big, and the stitches were neat and tidy. The right, however, was bloated, and the incision was open and bloody-looking despite the stitches. Between the two stitches was a gaping open beak! (My wife and I later named the hematoma on that side Beaky (Wish i could post photos here. It's hilarious)). I quickly covered up the bandage again and thought, "i must rest".  Then the pain kicked in. So I commenced heavy Ibuprofen dosing. 

By day 2 I was even more swollen and in pain. Sleep had been impossible so I was grumpy too. More ibuprofen. I consulted my information papers (two sides of photocopied generic vasectomy info. Nothing about swelling or extreme pain. Just the usual "2-3 days off and you're good to go"). The doctor had told me to go to Emergency if I had heavy bleeding in the first 72 hours, and to go back to Urology if an infection appeared after the first week. Nothing about hematomas or black balls. My balls were all bruised and black like someone had been at me with a baseball bat! And the beak on my nut looked like it was trying to talk.  I freaked out. So my wife took me back to Urology to show them. They took one look and ushered me away as if I had mental problems. I felt like saying "But these are my BALLS!! And they are growing a face!!!"  The small urology team where I went is all female. And they are not the most gentle, sympathetic women I have ever met. I'm sure having seen thousands of men's dangly bits, they now have barely any emotional connection to them. I have a very emotional connection to mine. 

I let a week go by and continued ibuprofen and paracetamol combined and kept off my feet as much as a man with small children can. Standing up from lying down would hurt like crazy. Gravity's effect on my swollen sack and the added pressure of blood flowing down there was enough to turn my face pale with pain. The bruising did start to clear up and the scrotal skin started returning to normal colour, which meant I wasn't hemorrhaging blood any more. Neither of my actual testicles hurt at all.  However, I started developing a large lump directly under the incision, a few cm above my right testicle (the one that hurt in surgery). It was firm and extremely painful to touch. And my abdomen was constantly aching that dull kicked-in-the-nuts ache, and it was cramping up on a regular basis. I scoured the net for info and presumed it was some kind of hematoma. It got bigger and harder and more painful. Eventually to the same size as my right nut. So now I had 3 balls?? I told my wife a new ball had grown to compensate and make babies. It was a new mutant hybrid which was growing a bird's face on the side. We named it Beaky. Anyhoot, what I presumed, was that the pressure of the swelling was pushing outward onto the incision wound and preventing it from closing up properly! After a shower, the scab came off and then the now completely open wound wept blood constantly. Not flowing blood but a slow steady seepage enough to soak a plaster in a few hours. I was worried about infection but so far I had no signs. The left ball and incision site was no longer swollen or painful at all. The way it SHOULD be!!  So I went back to Urology (8 days after surgery) to get a second opinion on Beaky and find out whether he would be moving in permanently. Again, I was fobbed off and told all was normal, despite my obvious anger and frustration. "If it is NORMAL then why did I know NOTHING about it beforehand?" She explained something along the lines that she had been doing vasectomies for 25 years, a few times a day, and in all that time she had only ever seen anything like my big bulging beaky ballsack 5 times! My wife later worked it all out that she had done 2712 vasectomies I was probably something like 0.22% of her patients! So I was a rarity! But she seemed absolutely confident that the confirmed hematoma (the hard lump) would get better within another month. She couldn't say exactly why it was there, other than when an anaesthetic injection is administered or when an incision is made it isn't 100% that it won't hit a nerve or blood vessel or delicate tissue. But surely she would have seen any damage done during surgery and let me know what to expect? Apparently not. And the swelling was just swelling and bleeding and clotting after whatever it was in there was hurt or damaged. And the pain in my pelvis was due to a nerve that runs from the balls up through the abdomen.  Anyway. I was relieved to have had SOME form of explanation. I was still angry that a voluntary procedure on my perfectly healthy balls had turned them into a car wreck. 

Days went by and the pain did start to subside! But the weeping continued. It would fill a bandage slowly. So I tried pulling the wound together myself using Steristrips to see if it would fuse and scab up that way. But it kept weeping and wouldn't scab, and any form of bandage would just get wet and prevent any drying out! Even lying naked on my back wouldn't help. I eventually read that Ibuprofen is a blood thinner and reduces clotting. I had been taking so much! It had probably aided the hematoma in developing and the weeping. So I stopped taking it. But it takes time for blood systems to normalise so I had to just wait. 

Yesterday I gave up all my efforts to stop the bleeding and went back AGAIN to show them Beaky's open "feed me feed me!" mouth. It didn't look good. And I was worried about infection. Basically there was a small hole in my sack!!  This time she actually sighed and said, "what's happened now??". But AGAIN they just told me it was fine and that it would stop bleeding and all close up eventually.  The nurse just cleaned it, put micropore over it and then a softer gauze plaster on top. No worry about infection or anything.  I'm not going back again. No way. Each time, the doctor seems to want to squeeze the hematoma! Now that f***ing kills. She shows no mercy! So now I'm happily confident to just give it time. The lump isn't so painful anymore, and my balls are not so massive. I will report again with an update soon.  But guys! These complications are RARE. Very rare!!  Right now I'm not regretting vasectomy, but frustrated at the lack of official information offered regarding rare complications. If the fertility test shows it hasn't worked though... Right now I'm pretty sure I won't be going under the knife again!  Sorry I wrote so much.

Try putting icy hot on swollen areas. Make sure not to put any on your testicles.

Though more than minor discomfort and many unsettling days, its still better than an OOPS! Just keep that in mind. Also, again, mine took a FULL 3 months before I had a day that I did not notice/ think of the discomfort. I will, however say, I did not have any swollen issues but for the first several weeks I could feel every step I took. 4 years later and it bothers me for several seconds out of the blue 3 or 4 times a year which is still better than about once a week that first year. Everybody is built and heals differently.

Had a vasectomy done 6 days ago on the 4th day after the vasectomy I had pain on my left testicle and felt as a nerve was being,pulled every time I walked well it got worse and had to go see my doctor turns out I have a scrotal hematoma on my,left side got prescibed antibiotics and pain killers was told it's supposed to get better. easy peasy my ass sucks being the 1.5% that develop this condition.

The incisions are little scars. The stitches were the dissolvable type but I got impatient once everything was sealed and healed properly so I cut them myself and pulled them out. Strangely satisfying to do!!

"Beaky" moved out as soon as the big swelling subsided: The hole closed up, the beak closed and didn't tweet another peep! There is a little scar but whatevs. Scars are cool n'est pas? Ok maybe not scarred balls. Sigh...

The hematoma swelling has gone down a LOT (completely on the left side). But on both sides I have small pea sized lumps in the epididymides or vas deferentia that I'm assuming are either sperm granulomas (granulomae?) or scar tissue from the snip and cauterisation. So I'm not worried.

There is no pain at all (or has ever been much really) in my left side, but the right side still gives me a bit of an ache every once in a while. Once a day or every other day perhaps.
The epididymus or vas def on the right side is still a bit swollen and tender to put pressure on and it feels thick, firm, and hard. Perhaps the hematoma is STILL subsiding and still possibly active (there is still a little bruise-like discolouration on the underside of my ballsack and underside of base of penis). OR it's scar tissue that is hard and tender.

I'm expecting that I will always have some kind of dull ache every once in a while but that doesn't bother me at all. As someone replied kindly to me, it's a very small price to pay for no "OOPS" happenings!!! Life has returned to complete normal for me. Sex is a joy, I'm back at work (heavy manual labour) which is fine (stamping down ground hard can be a little uncomfortable sometimes but other than that it's fine!) and I can run with no problems at all.

My right ball seems a little higher sometimes than it did before so I think sometimes the scar tissue or whatever it is above my testicle contracts for whatever reason and pulls up the ball a bit. So sometimes it can ache a bit if constricted against my trousers or something. But the pain is minimal.

So overall: I'm happy right now! Still pisses me off thinking back to the early weeks though. I haven't been for a sperm count test yet so I don't actually know for certain if it worked yet!! But she's not preggers and we've been like, "SURELY after all the pain and swelling it means there's NO chance the tubes will miraculously join up again, right??"

Anyway. Sorry I write so much. But I'll write again hopefully with another update some day! And then I can apologise yet again!

Big love to all you men out there going through all this sh*t. Tough it out. You'll be fine. And it'll be worth it in the end! Right guys??

Forgot to write that:
I'm at 14 WEEKS. (Sounds like a pregnancy term. How tantalisingly ironic)

Dude. Im so glad for you.

I had my V done in Dec and developed a hematoma above the left nut. Didn't swell to grapefruit size but more like the size of an egg. Luckily my doc was cool and explained in detail what was happening. It's all good now and my second sample was negative when I went in for the 2mo follow up. After 76 ejaculations :-). I was too lazy to go back at count 30 seeing I was cleared at 20 and had more than a month before the follow. Decided to number 2 that day.

I wore the jock strap constantly. Followed the docs advice and some more. I didn't lift for a month.

Can't you sue them or something? Honestly sounds like a bunch of feminists treating a man like he doesn't matter when clearly an open sack is not normal.

Mine was done 5 years ago. It took THREE solid months until I did not have "THAT" feeling when I walked and my foot touched the ground. At the 3 month point I had my first day with out it at all. It took another 3 months to be normal all the way. (No bad feeling)

I had my vasectomy done about 6 months ago. Everything went very well. I was back to work the next day. About month 3 post-op I noticed a hardened right testicle. There was no pain associated with it. Now two months later the hardness seems to be softening. I don't regret getting the vasectomy but was a little surprised it happened well after I thought all was good.

My husband is 2 weeks post vasectomy and has your exact symptoms. Did the pain and knot go away? Can u have an erection and enjoy sex? can you exercise, walk, run? How long did recovery take?

It's been 15 years approximately now and... yeah it still hurts on occasion. I believe it's scar tissue. It's not usually a problem but the area is definitely sensitive and it doesn't take much to irritate it. Despite this I've never had problems with exercise and/or sex.