It is of course. Imagine sticking a needle in the poor guy’s testicle – it must be but you can use local anesthetic effectively and most people will use deep sedation really to make it as kind and as well tolerated procedure as possible.
A little bit uncomfortable. It depends on what type of procedure you’re having done so, if it’s done on the local anaesthetic, the person carried out will put an injection into the scrotum, into the skin perhaps, sometimes into the cord that the testicles are attached to and then a needle might be placed into the testicle or into the cap at the top of the testicle trying to recover sperm. Sometimes a bit more anaesthetic is put in a cut in the scrotum and a piece of the testicle recovered (a small biopsy). Those sorts of procedures are a little bit uncomfortable, for most recovery goes reasonably well. It’ll be similar in fact having a vasectomy which many of the men having PESA, for example, would already have gone through for the more extensive procedures where you take multiple biopsies or do a micro TESE – that’s usually done under general anaesthetic (to put you asleep for that). You will have pain killers that you need to take after the more invasive procedures. You want to take it easy, you can get complications from any procedure but perhaps more common from the more invasive procedures. We generally recommend people to wear a scrotal support for a few days and just make sure they avoid any heavy activity for a bit of time too to allow things to heal.
Surgical sperm retrieval is performed under short intravenous sedation or local anaesthesia. It’s not painful. The fine needle used for the separation of the sperm makes the procedure straightforward. The success rate of PESA and TESA methods for surgical sperm retrieval treatments is similar to using ejaculated sperm. Both methods can also be used for purpose and diagnosis.
Of the two methods, PESA is generally preferred by most patients because once the procedure has been performed, they are usually allowed home within hours and can be back at work the following day. With the TESA method, patients often have pain and some swelling after the procedure.
Yes, this procedure can be painful therefore it is done under local or intravenous anesthesia. Patients often can have pain and some swelling after the procedure. There may be some swelling, bruising, or small amounts of fluid drainage for a few days as well. Following TESA or TESE procedures, the patient can take over-the-counter pain medications, if needed. Usually, the patient can resume non-vigorous activity after 2 to 3 days.
This shouldn’t be painful. It is usually done with local anesthesia, we inject some local anesthetics at the testicle levels, and then we carry out the procedure. After the procedure, we give some painkillers and an antibiotic to reduce the risk of infection. Patients usually start leading a normal life in 48 hours.
In cases in which it could be longer, or the patients feel really stressed, it can also be done under sedation. The protocol of painkillers is going to be exactly the same. If because of the clinical condition, and if it’s been really difficult to obtain sperm, we need to take more parts of the testicle, it could be slightly more painful, and the patients may need more painkillers. I would say that in 90-95% of the cases taking painkillers for a couple of days should be more enough. The patient can start living a completely normal life.
