Five Things Men are Surprised to Learn About Vasectomies

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD
Vasectomy and tying the knot
Tying the knot can have many meanings (Courtesy: Unsplash.com)

It’s March! Spring is in the air, along with a warmer sun, longer days, and still-cool breezes. In the words of Doug Larson, “Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.” It’s also a time of love, romance and…vasectomies! Did you know that more vasectomies are performed during March Madness than any other time of year? Here are five more things that you may be surprised to learn about the snip:

  • You’re gonna love it! There’s a good chance that you’ve had to think about contraception right alongside sex for most of your adult life. Imagine unpairing these two concepts forever, and not thinking about who’s in charge of contraception every time you have sex. With a vasectomy, there is no forethought needed. It simply works. No muss, no fuss.
  • It’s the best thing out there. Bar none, a vasectomy is the most effective contraceptive available. It fails in far fewer than 1/500 cases, and some of us have never seen it fail. And, as a guy, it puts you in the driver’s seat of this part of your legacy.
  • It can be pain-free. Sure, it’s a short office procedure performed by a surgeon. But, a vasectomy usually involves more “bother” and “angst” than pain. My patients often tell me that it’s like a visit to the dentist’s office: At first your guard is up with anticipation that they’ll find something as they poke and prod, but they usually don’t. Then you’re done, and a better man for it. And after that, I find that about half of my patients don’t bother to take any pain pills as they simply don’t need them.
  • It doesn’t have to be “permanent.” Sure, you should think of a vasectomy as irreversible, but I reverse them for a living. In fact, I’ve even said that the vasectomy is “the new condom” after publishing our vasectomy reversal success rates. Sure, a reversal is surgery and therefore should be taken seriously, but, for the 5-7% of vasectomized men who have this done annually, it’s just what the doctor ordered (no pun intended).
  • The jewels are still fine. The function of testicles is unchanged by having a vasectomy. They still do everything they did before. What’s different is that sperm are now actively “filtered” and removed by the body in the epididymis, a small organ beyond the testicle.

Yes, my friends, a vasectomy is a lot like life itself. As Shaun Hick says, “It shouldn’t take a life-changing event for you to change your life.”