Male Reproductive Treatments & Procedures

You’ll receive anesthesia before your procedure as an adult and stitches along your incision afterward. Expect some redness around the stitches. The penis may turn black and blue as the blood in the tissue spreads. The discoloration will eventually fade to yellow and brown and, in time, disappear. You’ll get pain medication to take home and complete instructions about at-home wound care, hygiene and physical activity.

Take advantage of the no-scalpel vasectomy procedure available at VHC Health. A vasectomy is a common male sterilization procedure (it doesn’t allow sperm to leave the testicles). The no-scalpel procedure is minimally invasive, doesn’t require a scalpel incision and is as effective as traditional vasectomy.

Rely on our urologists’ years of experience performing no-scalpel vasectomies for your best outcome. You’ll benefit from:

• Shorter Surgery time (about 20 minutes)
• Lower risk of infection and bleeding complications
• Quicker Recovery with less pain

What to Expect

After your pre-vasectomy visit, we’ll schedule your vasectomy. Follow the pre-surgery instructions from your urology office to prepare for surgery. A no-scalpel vasectomy separates the vas deferens (the tubes that allow sperm to leave the testicles). It’s safe and considered a reliable form of male contraception. Your surgeon will:

• Make small punctures on your scrotum's left and right sides
• Locate the vas deferens through the punctures and divide them
• Tie off, clip or cauterize (burn) the ends
• Place the vas deferens back into the scrotal sac
• Close the punctures

After the procedure, you’ll likely experience some soreness and need a few days of rest, an ice pack and oral ibuprofen (i.e., Motrin or Advil). You’ll receive complete at-home care instructions from your doctor.

Procedure Follow Up

You will not be sterile immediately after vasectomy. It can take several months and ejaculations for the sperm to disappear from the ejaculate. You’ll have a follow-up semen analysis three to four months after the procedure to ensure there’s no sperm in your ejaculate. Until this is done and confirms you’re infertile, you should take measures to prevent pregnancy.

Rely on your urologist to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) with noninvasive treatments first. These treatments include:

• Oral medication, known as phosphodiesterase type-5 inhibitors – Relax blood vessels and increase blood flow to the penis
• Testosterone therapy – Increases male testosterone hormone levels in the blood if your levels are low
• Penile injections – Improve blood vessel circulation in the penis, when injected into the penis, induce an erection
• Intraurethral medication – Helps blood flow into the penis to achieve and maintain erection using a medicated suppository inserted into the penis
• Vacuum erection devices – Draw blood into the penis using an external pumping device to create an erection

If less invasive ED treatments don’t work well, you may opt for a penile implant (prosthesis). The implant is a surgically placed device that treats ED by helping you get an erection. Penile implants don’t increase your sex drive, sensation or size of your penis.

How Penile Implants Work

Restore sexual spontaneity because a penile implant helps you gain a full erection without planning or waiting. Prosthetic erection assistance devices are hidden inside your body (implanted) and are easy to use whenever the time is right. When you squeeze a pump in the scrotum, fluid moves into the penis from a reservoir to create an erection. You deflate the pump to return to your natural penis.

Penile Implant Surgery

Your urologist will explain the different types of implants, such as inflatable or semirigid, and help you choose the right one. While under anesthesia, your surgeon places the semirigid cylinders or inflatable implant inside your penis. The inflatable implants also have a pump that goes into your scrotum. After surgery, you’ll get instructions on how to care for yourself when you go home. Depending on how quickly you’re healing, your doctor will tell you when you can resume sexual activity at a follow-up appointment.

If you want to undo your vasectomy, your urologist can perform reverse vasectomy surgery. Most vasectomies can be reversed. Your surgeon will reconnect the vas deferens tubes during outpatient surgery to try to restore the flow of sperm into your semen.

After the surgery, your scrotum will be tender, bruised and swollen for up to two weeks. The soreness will improve over time. You’ll receive important at-home instructions from your doctor to increase your chances of a successful reversal operation.

You’ll have monthly semen analysis at your urologist’s office for a year or until your partner gets pregnant. It can take several months before sperm is present in your semen again.