NJ/NY Vasectomy Doc?

January 12, 2012 8:50 AM

Early 40's male looking for recommendations for doctors who performs no-scalpel vasectomies, ideally in Northern NJ but New York City is ok too.

Bonus kharma points if you'd like to share your experience with said Doc including procedure and recovery.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

Since you don't appear to be getting a lot of first hand recommendations, I'll go a little off topic. Thirteen days ago, I had a no-scalpel vasectomy performed by this doctor in Seattle. Wrong coast, I know, but his CV indicates that he teaches the procedure nationally so his office might be able to recommend someone local to you. The entire department has an almost evangelical attitude about the procedure so they're likely to be able to at least point you in the right direction.

My experience with the procedure was pretty much, "Wait, that's it?" The worst parts were the direct result of me psyching myself up about somebody cutting on my junk. The procedure was not-exactly painful, but rather uncomfortable. [Disclaimer: I have a high pain threshold.] The level of pain in my testicles felt identical to a mild case of blue balls and there was no pain at the area of the incision. Everything was sensitive as hell, but that was more me being weirded out and having extra adrenaline from the procedure floating around. Subjectively, I felt more pain in the area that I assumed they'd be cutting into before I learned how the procedure actually works. The mind is a funny thing.

Sore balls notwithstanding, I felt about 90% the next day. Far and away the hardest thing about recovery was remembering not to lift anything. There's a reason most of what they tell you about aftercare is warnings about overexerting yourself.

Oh, and if you own a large and enthusiastic dog, you'll want to manage that situation. Feel free to MeMail if you want yet more TMI. My email is in my profile if you don't want a link to your metafilter account.

And, for the love of sanity, don't go on a China Miéville/Bas Lag kick the week before the operation.
posted by stet at 1:33 PM on January 12, 2012

Stet: Did you go into the followup to see if your sperm count was sufficiently low? Having to do the whole thing again is one of my vasectomy fears.
posted by bswinburn at 2:59 PM on January 12, 2012

Not enough time has passed to do the test, so no. One thing I didn't realize when I started the process is that you can "produce" a sample at home and simply bring it to the lab. No awkward hospital masturbation required or allowed.

Having gone through the admittedly terrifying process the first time, I would rate doing it again as an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe. For me, the fear and apprehension created more physiological stress to my body than the procedure. Or at least that's how it felt to me. YMMV. If I need to go through the whole thing again, it's the week off that worries me, not the operation.

Like so many people told me in the decade or so I put the operation off because of nerves, it's not that big of a deal. The thought of things healing wrong down there makes me squirm, but repeating the procedure itself doesn't.

This is anecdote and how my body and mind reacted to my particular team of doctor and nurses. Your experience may be very different.

This is the link I meant to post earlier.
posted by stet at 3:49 PM on January 12, 2012