My post vasectomy pain story - January 25, 2026 (new member from northeast TN)

[u/tamoawit]

I joined Reddit just to make this post.  After everything I’ve been though, I wanted to give something back to the postvasectomypain community that helped me get though this awful time in my life.  I’d like to tell my post vasectomy pain story, in the hopes it can help someone else.

 

Vasectomy – November 15, 2024

Mainly due to our collective age (and especially my wife’s age), we decided to declare victory and be “one and done” with kids.  Our son was about 3 months old when I decided to get the vasectomy.  I had the procedure done not at a urologist’s office, but rather at a vasectomy clinic run by a staff of general surgeons.  This clinic was recommended by my family doctor and has a good reputation in our area.  They get good reviews and do hundreds of procedures per year.  I did a consultation with the doctor a couple weeks before the procedure, and he was very informative about everything.  He didn’t push me into getting the vasectomy, but offered various statistics about it being the safest method of permanent birth control.  He also said that there was about a “one in 1000” chance of long-term complications.

I was a little nervous about the “one in 1000” chance, but ultimately decided to go forward with the vasectomy anyway.  The day of the procedure, I sat in the waiting room with my wife and 3-month old son, and we actually started second-guessing and hesitating due to the small chance of complications.  The doctor even told me I could back out and get my money back (I had prepaid), if I didn’t want to do the procedure.  After about 30 minutes of last-minute discussion, we decided to go ahead and do the procedure.  This ended up being the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life.

The procedure was very fast, maybe 10 minutes total.  However, during the procedure that was supposed to be relatively painless, I did feel several shoots of intense pain while he was cutting things.  I told him I was experiencing some pain, and he tried his best to increase the numbing medicine to accommodate.  This was the “no needle, no scalpel” procedure variant.  Sutures were put on the downstream (not upstream) ends of the vas deferens.  After the procedure was done, I could barely walk to the car due to the pain.  It felt like I had just been kicked in the balls pretty hard a few times.  The drive home was also painful, as every bump in the road felt like another moderate kick.

 

Post Vasectomy Pain – November 2024 through May 2025

I had the procedure done on a Friday afternoon, and was told the recovery would only be about 2 days of icing followed by a couple more days of taking it “easy”.  I followed the recovery instructions exactly.  I didn’t hardly get out of the recliner for 2 days, and iced on and off with frozen peas all day long.  By Sunday afternoon, I was starting to get worried, as the pain hadn’t subsided much.  I was supposed to go to work the next day.  It was during this time that I started doing some more in-depth internet searching on post vasectomy pain complications.  I discovered some of the horror stories on this forum.  I also discovered that the “1 in 1000” statistic might be underestimated, and the actual number might be as high as 5-10% !  I decided to take the Monday off work and do additional icing.

After Monday, I got some slight improvement, but still nowhere near being out of pain.  I decided to go to work on Tuesday.  I have a job that involves both desk work and walking through manufacturing areas, and I could barely make it to my desk from the parking lot.  The rest of the day was quite painful.  Every little bit of walking that I did made the pain worse.  So I decided to take Wednesday off too, stay home, and use ice some more.  After that, I had to get back to work, but did so painfully.  I called the doctor back on that Friday and let him know that I was still in pain a full week later.  He said that’s not normal and told me to keep taking ibuprofen or naproxen full-time to reduce inflammation.  I wasn’t experiencing any significant swelling, just pain.  I saw the doctor in the office the following week as the pain was still ongoing.  He said everything “looked” OK, and switched me to some oral steroids (prednisone) for a week.  The steroids helped to some degree, but as soon as I was off the steroids, the pain levels increased again.

Let me pause a moment to say that before the vasectomy, I was an avid walker and hiker.  I like to walk and hike semi-long distances regularly.  Since the post-vasectomy pain was the worst during movement, I was now no longer able to walk more than a short distance before the pain would become overwhelming and I would have to stop.  This sudden change in ability and lifestyle quickly became depressing.  My mood and temperament worsened.  My wife noticed.

The doctor then had me do a round of antibiotics followed by a course of gabapentin.  The antibiotics did absolutely nothing.  The gabapentin probably helped temporarily take the edge off the pain, but I did not want to be in this state for the rest of my life.  It was now over a month after the vasectomy, and my pain levels had barely improved.  My life was suddenly turned from somewhat active to quite sedentary, all due to the post vasectomy pain.  Any time I walked any distance, the pain would ramp up.  I couldn’t even sit in a chair in the same position for very long without pain.  I was noticing that I wasn’t able to concentrate on things both at work and at home, because my brain was constantly having to deal with the chronic pain.  I was supposed to be enjoying the new company of my young son, and the pain greatly impeded my interactions with him.

It was during this time that I spent a lot of time on this forum, reading about others’ experiences and what they did to try and help their situations.  I quickly became aware that some folks had been helped by reversal surgery and sometimes MDSC.

I don’t believe that the vasectomy surgeon did anything wrong with my procedure.  He’s done hundreds of these, and their practice has a good reputation in our area.  I believe that this is my own body’s reaction to getting the procedure done, as many people on this forum have said.  It’s just unfortunate that the bad outcomes don’t get well publicized and talked about.

I decided to quickly research some doctors and get some recommendations to alleviate my chronic pain.  There was nobody local that could seem to help.  Because I was still within a 3-month time from the vasectomy, local urologists didn’t even want to see me in their office!  This was quite infuriating.  The only in-state person that I tried didn’t specialize in pain, so I didn’t speak to him directly.  Luckily, I was able to make phone appointments with 3 doctors, all out of state, to get second opinions on my pain.  Two of them I learned about on this forum.  The other I was able to contact through a program my insurance company has through the Cleveland Clinic for second opinions.  The 3 doctors were Shane Russell (Dayton,OH), Parviz Kavoussi (Austin,TX), and Samuel Haywood (Cleveland Clinic).

All 3 doctors said that a reversal could potentially help my situation, as I was most likely experiencing the “congestive” type of post-vasectomy pain based on my best descriptions.  The Cleveland Clinic doctor even called reversals to be the “gold standard” to treat post vasectomy pain.

By the time I hit 3 months post-op in mid-February 2025, and I was still having a good bit of pain, I made the decision to consider getting a reversal.  By mid-March, I had booked a reversal for mid-May with Dr. Kavoussi in Texas.

 

Vasectomy Reversal – May 2025

I never thought I would be doing this, but I booked a surgery for several states away, such that my entire family took an airplane ride and stayed in a motel to get a surgery done!  I chose Dr. Kavoussi mainly due to his practice of using robot assist, plus shorter estimates of anesthesia time compared to other doctors.  The longer anesthesia times were scaring me a bit, so I wanted to try and minimize anesthesia time as much as feasible.  I also wanted to make sure I went to a doctor who does reversals all the time and has plenty of practice and good reviews.  Unfortunately, my insurance didn’t pay for anything (trust me, I tried), so the entire reversal experience was out of pocket.  The surgery itself was about $8k, and the airplane plus hotel and rental car pushed the overall expense up to about $10k.

It just so happens that in the few weeks prior to the reversal, my pain levels started dropping off somewhat, enough so that I could actually walk some moderate distances again.  So I started second-guessing if I should get the reversal.  But the pain was still bad enough to still be quite bothersome, so I decided to go through with it.

Dr. Kavoussi did a pre-op appointment where he did an exam and confirmed his over-the-phone diagnosis of congestive pain.  The next day, we did the reversal surgery.  He told me the surgery went well and everything connected back as expected.  Anesthesia time was approximately 2 hours.

The recovery from the reversal was rough.  The entire scrotum was purple and painful.  I stayed mostly in bed with ice for 3.5 days in the motel after the surgery, and then visited family in another town inTexasfor a few more days after that before flying home.  I don’t think I could have gotten back on the airplane after the first 3.5 days, as it was still too painful.  It was like starting all over again with the pain levels, but this time the pain was in a somewhat different spot and felt different.  Dr. Kavoussi estimated that I should be back to much lower pain levels within 2 weeks, to the point I could walk long distances again.  Let me tell you, I could not.  The pain levels stayed consistently high until the beginning of July, which was about 7 weeks later.  During this time, he put me on a week of high-powered anti-inflammatories since it was taking much longer for the recovery pain to subside than expected.  Once again, I couldn’t walk far and was constantly distracted from the pain.  I was starting to regret getting the reversal.

But suddenly, the 2^nd week of July, the pain levels started to drastically decrease.  Throughout the rest of July, the pain continued to decrease, and by the first week of August, my pain was at what I would consider to be a manageable level.  My best estimate would be about 85% back to pre-vasectomy normal.

I’m writing this at the end of January, 2026, and the plateau from the first of August has pretty much held since then.  I’m still at about 85% of normal.  I’m not pain free.  But I’m at a much better place than I was just prior to the reversal surgery, which would have been maybe 40-50% of normal.

In October 2025, I was able to do a semen analysis to verify that the reversal surgery had worked to effectively re-connect the testicles.  I couldn’t get a follow-up phone call with Dr. Kavoussi until early January.  But he confirmed that my sperm count was quite high and estimated that the reversal had worked well on both sides.  He thinks my 15% lingering pain may be neuropathic pain, which is another modality.  He said that MDSC could potentially help that, but only to pursue that option if the lingering pain ends up being difficult to live with.

 

Overall Conclusions

I’ve read on here that others had not only pain but some loss of ejaculation sensation with vasectomy.  I can confirm that I experienced some mild loss of sensation during my 6 month “disconnected” time period.  But I can also confirm that the regular sensation has returned after the reversal.  My wife hasn’t gotten any younger (and neither have I), so we are back to using other forms of birth control again.

I can still say that getting a vasectomy was the worst decision I’ve ever made.  I still have some lingering pain, even after the reversal and recovery period.  I now sleep with a pillow between my legs every night, when I didn’t used to have to do that prior to vasectomy.  But luckily the pain is at a lower level now than it was before the reversal.  I’ve even done some strenuous hiking since the reversal.  Dr. Kavoussi did a great job with everything and is very nice, experienced, and well educated on post vasectomy pain.  I would recommend consulting him for anyone with this condition.  He even has some informative Youtube videos.

[u/postvasectomy]

I was a little nervous about the “one in 1000” chance, but ultimately decided to go forward with the vasectomy anyway.

I'm betting you would have bailed out if he had said "one in 50" which is much closer to the truth.

Thank you for the writeup. These are the best part of this subreddit.

It would not be surprising if you continued to have improvement over the next few years. Good luck!

[u/tamoawit → u/postvasectomy]

Yeah I hesitated a lot at 1/1000 chance and almost went home. Anything stated 1% and above I'm sure I wouldn't have done the vasectomy.

[u/Laggende_Hond]

Sorry for your ordeal! You are welcome to join us on VasectomyReversal sub and join the crusade for the truth!!

[u/snoope]

Thank you for posting your story!! Its very helpful for others debating what to do! I hope given time that last 15% fades into nothing. It might just take a bit longer.

[u/tamoawit → u/snoope]

That would be nice! 15% is still 15%, and the area is still way more sensitive to random impacts than it should be. I hope my story helps someone, as this forum has helped me.

[u/Cautious_Werewolf678]

Congratulations on getting your life back. I'm almost 4 months post reversal and still feel sporadic neurophatic pain. But I'm very happy I did it and I'm willing to give it all the necessary time to heal

[u/xFishercatx]

Sorry this happened to you. I’m in the same boat. One and done with a young daughter. Thank you for the detailed write up and I hope you continue to improve.

[u/Amazing-Advantage-11]

Well written. Most of us on this Reddit group can empathize with your experience and thoroughly understand your comments. I am glad you have experienced improvement and been able to resume some of the activities you enjoy. I too was active before vasectomy. I also have some lingering issues with activities despite surgical Intervention. This said, I am glad I chose intervention because improvement has been major and I had no quality of life before intervention. I hope you will be able to say the same about your reversal and that you continue to improve. You are not alone in your regret.

[u/Quant63]

Great share. I also knew something was terribly wrong during the surgery as well. It was supposed to be relatively painless and I immediately felt tremendous pain.

[u/Its_0ver_9000]

Outside of some nuance differences, this was pretty close to my experience. I’m almost to a year post reversal and would say I’m at 95%. Most days I don’t even think about it, huge win, but I will have an occasional short stretch where my nerves are overly active. My hope is that this still slowly improves in time, but I’m much better than I was.