Coping With Testicular Pain

History: Prior to my vasectomy in 2001 I had both inguinal hernias repaired in case that matters. I recall a trauma from hockey probably 2003 or around then that I ended up going to emerge and nothing further from there and the pain went away.

In August 2006 I began to get pretty serious testicular pain that was impacting my sleep which went on for close to a week, seemed to be getting better slowly but got worse and I ended up passing out from the pain. This took me to emerge and an appointment with a urologist whom sent me for an ultrasound which showed nothing cancerous however from that and examination he recommended we try varicocele repair (time was given to see if would go away before jumped into surgery). That did not resolve and after giving it some time we moved to the next surgery - epididimous was removed. This ended up being a surgery that the pain of child birth likely would not have prepared me for.

These surgery’s have not resolved the issue however I do not get the extreme pain levels of before. This is likely inpart due to the fact that I spend alot of time at a computer with my work and sitting is painful so I now stand at my workstation at work and at home. This has added some lower back pain issues on a couple occasions so I am needing to do some stretches to compensate for this. This impacts my activity levels as running and playing with kids outdoors does aggravate the problem. With some help of Advil, Tylenol, some stretching exercises, tight underwear when doing activities, and icing, I have been able to become more active with my children however still limited. I still haven’t wore Jeans in 2 years, I have rode a bike only 2 times and won’t even think of playing hockey or jogging.

The pain takes on a number of forms from absolute tenderness of the testicle, dull ache pain that creeps up on me in more general region and seems to radiate into the buttox although this I do get some relief from stretching. I do not get increased pain from intercourse. I had a second opinion which ended up being more of a redirection to a pain clinic and the doctor there didn’t think he could assist except by prescribing something for the pain. I do get some relief from Tylenol however don’t think I want to be on it daily for life.

The next step with urologist is to remove the testicle which doesn’t sound like this would be too big a deal from testostorin levels as due to the varicocele issue and the problem testicle is much smaller and not likely contributing to testosterone levels much. I have read on some forms about someone having pain from removal which is unnerving. I am unsure where to go from here, removal seems extreme but it is impacting my life and activity……