Surgery for a Hydrocele

Hi! My son who is now 9 months old had a hydrocele. When he was 3 month old I noticed it before his 3 month appt and was referred to a pediatric urologist. I actually went to a pediatric surgeon as they are the ones who do this kind of surgery more frequently. (It helps that I am a pediatric oncology nurse) Anyway I went to Dr Darryl Hermann at Pediatric Associates- multiple offices- in Plano. The current recommendation is to wait until one year of age for it to resolve on its own before surgery. Of course if it becomes painful etc then they will operate sooner. In my son's case it resolved on his own around 6 months.
I hope this helps and I was so grateful for the reassurance given to me by the surgeon.
H.

Hi K.,

My son (who is 22 mos now) was born with a Right Hydrocele. It was large at birth and went away around a month. It never got large again, but at his 6 mos check up, the pedi noticed that the right testicle was not growing like the left and we did a sonogram to check the sizes. She referred us to a pediatric urologist/surgeon, Dr. Harrison out of Children's Medical Center. He recommended that we remove the right testicle and "tie" down the left one (just to make sure that the left one later in life would not twist or move and have problems. If that happened then he would have a cutoff of testosterone and not go through puberty!). The right one didn't *have* to be removed, but it served no purpose and could pose a higher risk later in life if it was left in. So we did surgery at 8 mos old. He is fine, no problems and you can't even tell it is missing. He actually did so good with the surgery that he even took his first steps when we got home from the hospital that day! He can go later when he is older for a "prosthetic testicle" for appearance sake.

I hope all goes well for your little boy. Feel free to email me if you need to. ____@____.com

Mel

Hi Kaely,
My son who is now 7 months old, had sugery for a hydrocele at 4 months. It was picked up at his check up, and we were referred to a pediatric surgeon Dr. Miller out of Cooks Children. He recommended that we do surgery. I was absolutely terrified, but it ended up being no big deal. The surgery went fine and Reese was completely back to normal the next day. I also can't say enough about how great Dr. Miller, and the entire staff at Cooks Children were. The worst part for us was the recovery room because my son was a bit cranky upon waking up, and there were a lot of other children crying and waking up after their procedures. My son was fine and back to normal by that evening. Good Luck
Kim

Hi K.,
My son had a hydrocele at birth too. Like you, we were told that it should go away by the time he was 1 year. At his 6 month check up it was still there and we were referred to a pediatric urologist, Dr. Jeff Pugach. He said that if it was still there when he is 18 months then he would like to see him again and talk about surgery. At 18 months his pediatrician said that it had turned into a hernia. Meaning that the tube between the abdomen and scrotum did not close and the fluid was going back and forth, the technical term is communicating. So, we went back to the Urologist and he said that we needed to do surgery. I was terrified! But it all turned out fine and my son did great! The day after surgery he was completely back to normal. We had the surgery at Cook's Children's Hospital. I cannot say enough good things about the hospital and Dr. Pugach.

Good luck to you and your sweet baby boy! If you would like to talk more about it please feel free to contact me directly.

Hi! My son is 20 months old and has a right-side communicating hydrocele that just appeared two weeks ago after having a cold with a lot of coughing. His two cousins both have inguinal hernias. What is going on??? When did all these young boys start having inguinal hernias left and right, and even worse, having inguinal hernia surgery left and right? No older generations seem to know anything about this, and they have no horror stories to tell about complications they had as a young boy with an inguinal hernia. My fear is that the medical world is taking this situation for advantage and making millions performing a surgery that isn't really needed. I am , ofcoarse, very open minded to both sides of the argument and am not settling on either choice yet. (to get the surgery for him now, or wait and do it when things need to be done) What do you think is going on?? I can't even remember male friend of mine having this. It just seems so left and right lately.