Varicocele

[Guest guest]

Hey guys .... Thought I might drop a note in here as it seems that

there is a good thread going on Varicocele .... I can tell ya a bit

about my experience with this scourge of men ....

My story starts off November 2006 .... I had my appendix out .... Now

I can't say whether or not the appendix had anything to do with my

varicocele but I can say that over the course of a year I saw my

libido decline .... That I do remember .... I went from every three

days of needing to be intimate to once a week, to no real interest at

all .... When it hit the once a week or sometimes longer point which

was September of 2007, I also noticed a lumpy-veiny mass in my

scrotum .... I also had a dull ache, and after sex there woudl be a

slight pain .... Around this time I also started to have ED issues

that were more severe than usual .... I say usual, because I had ED

issues on and off for about 2 years, I just chalked it up to stress

or fatigue .... I would pop a viagra or cialis and all would be

fine .... Then in September I would take a Viagra and it would not

phase me .... I upped the dose and still nothing .... This plus the

mass prompted me to see my GP .... She didn't have a clue and

referred me to a urologist and a physical medicine Dr. .... Needless

to say the Physical medicine DR was a waste of time and money, and

the first urologist was as well as his prescrition, after doing the

ultrasound and diagnosing Varicocele was to wear a jock and come back

in three months .... Needless to say I jumped on the internet and

researched varicocele .... And what I found was AnabolicMinds forum

and MANY studies stating the obvious ....

Varicocele causes Low Testosterone .... Surgery in most cases

reverses this ....

I found another urologist and he was concerned that the varicocele

could have been due to something wrong internally .... So he had a

MRI and CAT scan done to rule any internal issues out .... All came

back clear .... During the visit I brought up and showed all the

information I had mined from the internet about varicocele and the

studies that showed a link to Low Testosterone .... I had had my T

tested and it was in the Low-Normal range .... Which is Most

Common .... Most that suffer from varicoele do have a normal T

reading but it is at the low end of normal .... Now this brings in

the fact that there is new information that shows that there is a

threshold for testosterone .... You get to this threshold and you

have all the classic symptoms of Andropause\Low T .... This is where

I was ....

My GP even put me on Welbutrin because she thought I was

depressed .... I was, but it wasn't just depression .... It was Low T

which caused the low T .... I think many GP's look at a patient and

just throw whatever band-aid applies .... Hell, at one point she

wanted to up my dosage to 300mg .... I told her I would rather have a

one month trial of Androgel to see if that was the issue and she

refused, saying that my urologist, which did not beleive that the

varicocele caused the low t, would have to prescribe it ....

The second urologist then referred me to an interventional

radiologist, as I wanted to have the embolization procedure done ....

I went for the visit and asked him about the low testosterone and he

too did not attribute the varicocele to the symptoms I was

experiencing .... After he told me that he woudl put 30 coil to block

the veins I told him no thanks and left ....

I went back to the second urologist and he referred me the micro

surgeon in his office that could correct it for me .... When I saw

him he too did not connect the varicocele to my symptoms .... Even

when I gave him the report at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071017160526.htm

He did take a double take when looking at my scrotum and noticed that

I may have bilateral varicocele .... HE didn't think the one on the

right was very large but ordered another ultrasound to verify ....

Sure enough I have a Grade I on my Right and a Grade III on my

left ....

I had the surgery to correct both sides on December 13 2008 ....

4 months of depression, fatigue, weakness, tingling of extremities,

ED, loss of libido, Bottom line - Feeling like a 100 year old in a 35

year old's body ....

After the surgery I noticed some alleviation of the symptoms, but I

still was not what I call back to normal .... I saw the urologist a

couple weeks after the surgery as well as my GP .... The urologist

was VERY impressed with how many veins he had to ligate on my left

side .... 20 .... To me the way he said this meant I could have had

the varicocele for a very long time .... But both refused to give me

a trial of Androgel to see if that would eliminate my symptoms .... I

was starting to get depressed again, as I had taken myself off the

welbutrin at the time of the surgery .... I had asked my GP to refer

me to an Endocronoloist .... She did .... The Endo was supposedly the

Endo of Endo's .... After getting my labs back about 3 months after

the surgery my Testosterone was 293 (241-827) LabCorp .... The Endo

said I was normal and dismissed me .... Totally .... If I was normal

then why did I feel the way I did ....

He suggested that it may be all in my head .... So .... Knowing

better, I decided to go back on the welbutrin to prove to him and all

the others that it was not in my head .... I mean if I took the

welbutrin for a month or so and still felt the way I did I could rule

my head being the issue ....

Around this time my blood pressure was going up .... At one point it

was 160/87 .... This was totally out of line with my norms, which are

higher than I would like, but no where near this high .... I then

read that Low T can agravate blood pressure and raise it .... So I

went to yet another DR .... I went to a totally different GP to get

another 2 cent, which is all their worth these days .... She

basically gave me the standard, T is different for everyone and yours

is fine and normal range .... Try diet and exercise .... At this

point I was really getting to the end of my rope .... I had no where

else to turn .... I was damned to Low T .... The only light was that

in 5 years my T might be low enough to warrant Androgel .... Or I was

going to have to get my T from another source .... Other than a

DR ....

You have know the internal pain and depression I felt was something I

would never wish on anyone .... I entertained suicide .... I thought

about how it would affect those around me .... In the end the

welbutrin was my only saving grace ....

Towards the end of March the surgeon called and asked why I had not

made a follow up appointment .... I had not been told to make another

Appointment and thought my appointment after the surgery was the only

one I was going to have .... I was told he wanted another

Testosterone test done and an ultrasound .... I scheduled and prepped

hard .... I wrote all my questions and concerns .... Printed off

every bit of info I could on Low T and varicoceles .... I was ready

to do battle to get the Androgel this time whether hell or high water

came ....

I went in for my appointment and had the ulrasound done .... I met

with the surgeon and said that he was happy with the fact that the

right side which had 7 veins ligated was 100% clear of

varicocele .... And the left was abou8t 75% clear of varicocele ....

I then started to mention the Testosterone .... HE interupted and

said that he thought my numbers were a bit on the low side for a

young guy and would give me a 30 day trial of Androgel ....

CRAZY !

Here I am now, 35 years old and a 3 weeks later .... I have not felt

so good in months .... The subltle things that are now back the way

they were are so refreshing ....

Dreams .... How have your dreams been lately ? Are they as vivid and

lively as you may remember ?

Fleeting Thoughts .... Do you have thoughts that run through your

mind while thinking of something else ? While I was going through my

situation I would only be able to track one thing at a time and

rarely had fleeting thoughts ....

Morning Erections .... Do you have them ? Do you wake in the middle

of the night with wood ? I didn't .... Many have reported loss of

morning erections and nightly erections ....

Imagination .... I know that this one is silly but I will try to

describe this as best I can .... When you are looking at a rug or

clouds can you easily pick out shapes and forms ? Sometimes I sit on

the can and look at the bathroom rug and could see faces, shapes, and

forms .... My imagination would create images based on this and I

could see a face, or etc ....

Fantasy .... Do you look at your partner or a pretty girl and find

yourself taken into a fantasy ? I like watching mine in the

shower .... I would then be taken into a sexual fantasy as if on auto

pilot .... While eperiencing Low T .... That was gone ....

Creative Thought .... For me i would sometimes see a product or

device and all of a sudden I would have this thought of what would

make that thing better .... Or hear a song and think this lyric would

have been better ....

Stamering .... This was a big one for me .... I am not a hoity toity

talker by any stretch .... But I used to be able to finish others

sentences very easily .... Low T made me the one that people would

finish sentences for ....

Sweet Tooth .... I love my sweets .... While Low T made me crave them

less .... Of course this could be chalked up to depression, but even

while on the Welbutrin I rarely craved sweets like I had ....

This is probably not all, but I have only been on Androgel for the

past three weeks, and these are the things that I am finding that I

had been missing, because slowly they are coming back to me ....

Maybe this is just silliness .... But I am an Aquarius and everything

that means has been missing from my inner being while experincing Low

T ....

So to any and all Doctors that are reading this post .... The quality

of life one loses because of varicocele is imense ....

I really wish doctors were more in tune with this issue .... the

studies say that 15 to 20% of all men suffer from varicocele and

never know it because MOST men are Asymptomatic ....

Becker

Columbus, Ohio

[Guest guest]

I have been diagnosed witha vericocele...my testosterone(Oct 21st) was/is

394...it will probably go up once you've had the surgery...my doctor told me to

loose some weight then have the surgery...

Elrick

great123stones <great123stones@...> wrote:

has anyone recieved a low testosterone as a result of a varicocele

Mine came in in July and I have felt like hell since, I had a

Testosterone score in August which was 414 but I know it has gone down

alot since then since I feel like absolute hell now, my testicles are

also the size of small grapes and it seems they get smaller every time

I touch them