After you have dried off any disinfectant lotion and dressed you will be escorted to another waiting area with there is a couch to rest upon if you want and you can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee while you read a book or magazines and wait for about an hour. Once this time has passed your wounds and the scrotum will be carefully but gently checked for any suigns of early bleeding. After this checkup you are allowed to go home to rest and take it quietly for the rest of the day.
Please remember that for the entire 7 days after your vasectomy you must avoid any physical exertion which makes you strain and take care to protect yourself from being injured in the scrotum! Physical exertion or physical trauma to the scrotum may cause bleeding to happen within the scrotum and if blood accumulates inside the scrotum the collection of blood may then become infected with disastrous consequences. This is a really important warning
By the time that you get home the scrotum will probably start to feel sore - some patients describe the pain as feeling like you’ve been “kicked in the nuts”. Fortunately the pain gradually settles over the next few days and usually by the time that the skin stitches are removed from the scrotum most of the discomfort has disappeared. Some men have some visible bruising appear in the skin of the scrotum but unless a swelling occurs in the scrotum itself the visible bruising is of little consequence. The extent of this bruising varies enormously from person to person.
Most men also discover that they do have a couple of tender lumps in the scrotum afterwards. Nearly always these are just the internal sites of the operation which can be felt. The Vicryl ligatures on the vas provoke a reaction from the body which is tries to dissolve the Vicryl. This process takes at least six weeks to be complete and in the meantime a lot of scar tissue is laid down around the operation site. The lumps change to become less sensitive but firmer over this time. Only after the Vicryl is gone will the scar tissue start to soften and eventually disappear - this will take a few months to happen.
The skin stitches do not usually hurt at all while they are in and removing them is usually fairly painless. After these stitches are removed a week after your operation, plans are also made for you to produce a semen specimen about four weeks later and you will be given a specimen jar in which to collect the semen - it’s not expected that you should fill the jar! A few drops will be quite sufficient but it is important for the laboratory to receive the specimen as quickly as possible after you have produced it, certainly not the next day or even several hours later! The result of the test will be sent to the doctor the day after you take the specimen to the Pathology department to be tested and you should ring the doctor to find out whether it was all clear or whether you will need to do another specimen in 4 weeks time. (This happens occasionally and might even happen once or twice more because sperm can live up to 120 days in the seminal vesicles behind the bladder!)
In order to ensure that no sperm are found in the semen it is helpful to have as many ejaculations as possible in the four weeks between removal of the stitches and collection of the semen specimen. Your partner may be able to help you achieve this goal! But remember to continue using other forms of contraception as you aren't sterile yet!!!
The result of the semen examination will be sent to the surgery the day after you or your partner deliver the specimen to the hospital’s pathology department and you should ring the surgery to find out the result. If there are still a few sperm seen in the semen (these are nearly always dead sperm incapable of fertilising an egg) you will be asked to repeat the collection of semen in a few more weeks just to make absolutely certain that you are sterile. After all, you have had the operation in order to not have any more children and a few more weeks waiting for final clearance are nothing compared to the length of time kids are at home and our responsibility!