I am 47. My wife and I have been married since 1978 and are the parents of two sons, now ages 18 and 15. In January 2001 I decided to "finally" get a vasectomy, and I have regretted that decision every day, and night, since. The procedure itself was horrendous enough: the anesthetic that was administered had no effect whatsoever, and no amount of writhing and yelping on my part could persuade Dr. Foul-up that the procedure, for this patient at least, was anything but routine. Instead, the "doctor" simply instructed his nurse to forcibly restrain me on the operating table ("the slab of woe").

Afterward, I was instructed to go home and "put some ice on it." Little did I know that my long nightmare was just beginning. The post-op pain never went away, and in fact only became more intense. When I dragged myself in for a follow-up visit two weeks later, Dr. Foul-up diagnosed my condition as epididymitis and suggested that it was probably caused by a "pre-existing condition." Huh?! Dr. Foul-up prescribed Cipro and bed rest. After six weeks of this, I was fed up and went to my primary care doctor, who prescribed Keflex and Vioxx, neither of which helped.

My boss then called his own urologist and asked if he could see me immediately. This doctor prescribed Erythromycin and Doxycycline, to no effect. Finally, right after Easter, I underwent a bilateral epididymectomy, believing that by removing the afflicted parts of my anatomy this would eliminate the source of the pain. The biopsy of the trashed tissues showed lots of evidence of trauma and foreign body inflammation (read "silk sutures") but no sign of infection. So, for four months the doctors had been "treating" me for an infection I never had, while raging inflammation had done its dirty work. Even worse, I never recovered from the epididymectomy: the pain and inflammation only became more unbearable.

In desperation, I consulted a pain management doctor, who also happened to be the anesthesiologist who had assisted in the most recent surgery. Over the course of the next month, I underwent weekly steroidal, illeoinguinal and genito-femoral (!) nerve block injections, which were so overwhelmingly painful that I nearly fainted and had to be put under conscious sedation. When these injections failed to accomplish anything, the doctor prescribed Neurontin (an anti-seizure drug originally developed to treat epilepsy) in massive doses (titrating up to 2700 mg. a day from 300 mg.) and as many as five super Vicodin (each 10 mg. hydrocodone and 660 mg. Tylenol) daily.

In addition to taking these meds (and still trying to function at my job), I also had weekly electo-accupuncture treatments. These involved the insertion of about forty needles literally from head to toe. Needles stuck into my tailbone, perineum, and pubic bone were wired to a TENS (transcutaneous electrical stimulation) device. These treatments provided me with, at best, a day or so of moderate relief before the pain would come roaring back.

In November, I returned to my pain management doctor, who elected to try a lumbar sympathetic nerve block. This involved the insertion of a long needle obliquely into the lumbar region of my spine, without any form of sedation whatsoever. I had to be fully conscious so I could describe what I was feeling (!) Smelling salts were administered to keep me from passing out. This procedure left me completely pain free...for a day. Two follow-up treatments failed to do anything, but at least the doctor was able to give me a diagnosis for my condition: Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), an inflammatory, autoimmune disorder of the sympathetic nervous system. RSD ordinarily results from trauma to a limb but, as I have been told, cases resulting from trauma to the groin area are exceedingly rare and thus difficult to diagnose and treat. RSD is incurable, although in some cases it has been known to "burn itself out," presumably before the patients themselves burn out.

At any rate, in December 2002 I elected to try one more surgery in hopes of getting my life back. My urologist and pain management doctor referred me to a specialist, who did a bilateral sacral nerve root stimulation implant. This involved the insertion (read "shoving") of a set of electrical wires bilaterally alongside my sacrum, where nerves exit the spinal column. This procedure was done without any form of sedation, again because I needed to be fully conscious so I could tell the doctor what I was "feeling." Every painful experience or procedure I had endured in my life paled into insignificance compared with the agony of that operation. The misery continued during the week-long "shocking" test phase, during which I took turns plugging the wires into an electrical device. The theory was that the electrical pulse from this device would "interrupt" the pain messages being sent from my groin to my brain. In practice, I could barely turn the knob (calibrated from "0" to "10") up to "1`." The pain of the electrical current (read "shock") proved to be greater than the pain it was supposed to interrupt. Worse yet, on the right side, I felt the current/pain in my FOOT before I felt anything in my groin, and what I felt in my groin was akin to inserting my penis into a light socket! Mmmmmm.

After a week of this, the doctor mercifully agreed to remove the implanted wires and prescribed yet another drug, Flexeril, for me to take in addition to all the other meds I was already on. And after a year of trying to "fix" the problem, I basically gave up. All my doctors, and the folks at the Social Security Disability office, agreed that I had become completely disabled.

During the past year, I have concentrated on learning to live with RSD and discovering what my limitations, and possibilities, are. I have good days, but more bad days. Flare-ups occur without warning. My health insurance, which cost me more than $700/month, does not cover prescription drugs (or any unconventional treatments such as
Acupuncture), so I have been highly motivated to reduce the level of meds I take daily. I am now down to 900 mg. Neurontin/day, three super Vicodin/day, and one 10 mg. tablet of Flexeril/day, plus three capsules of Eleuthero (Siberian ginseng)/day. The latter herbal capsules help to even out the highs and lows. I travel to Mexico every few months to purchase Neurontin and Flexeril at a considerable savings, but I can't bring Vicodin across the border because it is a narcotic.

As I write this, I am enduring another flare-up. My testicles and spermatic cords are extremely inflamed (Read "on fire") and swollen to three times normal size. The heat and pain extend throughout my groin, down my right leg to my foot, and up my spine. This condition makes it extremely painful to lie down, sit, or stand up/walk, which just about covers any form of activity.

So, what would I advise? If you are considering having a vasectomy, don't. If your wife is bugging you to do it, print this out and insist that she read it. If you have made the mistake of having a vasectomy and are now experiencing pain that your doctor says is epididymitis, say "thank you" and run. If your doctor says he can fix it by performing an epididymectomy, tell him to "go to hell" and run. If you have had an epididymectomy and are still in pain, I am truly sorry, but forget trying to "fix it." There is no "fix."

Let�s face it: we are victims of the best-kept dirty little secret in the medical profession. Think about it: without a constant stream of vasectomy clientele, urologists would have very little business. Vasectomies are nothing but a cash cow for urologists, and these doctors are not about to do anything to jeopardize their livelihoods. After one urologist has done his dirty work, good luck trying to find another urologist to serve as an "expert witness" on your behalf. Our culture aggressively promotes the mutually exclusive ideas that more sex is good but more babies are bad, and prescribes sterilization as the cure to this problem. The powerful carrot of sex without "consequences" will trump a man's understandable fear of a doctor piercing his scrotum with a knife, pulling out the tubes that connect his balls to the spermatic cords, cutting and cauterizing them, and sewing up the ends with sutures made from the caterpillar excrement, a protein-based substance which the body will forever recognize as a foreign body and will exhaust itself trying to attack and be rid of.