Vasectomy Recovery Time

You should discuss and describe all the 'fantastic' details from pregnancy, child birth and labor. He might not be so quick to panic that he will be that way forever. Like all things, it will heal with time.

My husband did exactly what Diane B. mention- sat around and watched basketball with a bag of frozen peas on his crotch. He told me that after this procedure, he had a newfound respect for what I went through when I gave birth. :) He was up and at it at around 10 days, but he was careful with lifting for another two weeks.

I would park your husband back in the chair, prop his feet up, give him a bag of frozen peas and pamper him for a few days until he recovers. Sorry that you are going through this! It's hard on YOU, too!

Good grief. They tell patients NOT to lift for 12 days. Even then to test to make sure they are not feeling any stress.

Some, Men..

I am sure he will be fine, but if he thought he was going to be able to do everything he has ever done within a week, he was fooling himself.

Just try to make him as comfortable as possible. Be understanding and acknowledge you can tell he is uncomfortable. If he can have a beer, give it to him, make him his favorite meals. Cold packs, baths to soak in,.

In the back of your mind imagine all of the women who have given birth with no pain meds, tore, were stitched up and still got up to feed and care for their families after a day of rest without missing a beat.

Sounds like he did way too much way too soon. If this vasectomy took longer than most, then there was something already going on inside (pre-existing inflammation or scar tissue? anatomical abnormality?) or there's a lot of inflammation and scarring. The bruising is natural but can be worse if there was a lot more manipulation going on for the doctor to get to a good spot in the tubes to do the procedure. If he lifted something too heavy and now has pain, he probably tore a stitch or opened up part of the incision - not sure if the vasectomy was done with cautery or surgical cutting of the vas deferens, but either way he's going to have irritation in there. He needs to stop with everything strenuous, sit down with ice packs, and take some anti-inflammatories that do not cause bleeding.

I worked for years in a vasectomy clinic and we never allowed patients to lift heavy things after 3 or 4 days. It was 2 weeks for heavy lifting and strenuous exercise. In fact, the most common time for vasectomies was March - the men would sit around (doctor's orders) watching March Madness basketball with packs of frozen peas or corn on the incision area. The point was to really sit around for days and heal up.

Now your husband is hurt and is naturally very skittish about new injuries - he's probably got more inflammation (even if he can't see the swelling, it's internal) and irritation than he had to begin with, so he's got to take his recovery seriously.

Make sure he's wearing regular briefs and as everyone suggested, insist that he sticks with light duty only. Anti-inflammatories are a good idea right now as well.

My husband did something similar-- just started being too active too soon and yes, he got a reality check quite quickly. It does take a while to heal. It took a couple weeks before he was 100% because he didn't take his time in laying low. Some people have to learn the hard way.

For what it's worth, I did the same after having my son; it took a couple days before it felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Bodies are sometimes slow to respond to these sorts of things.

Lots of good advice here.
Just keep in mind, that men are "babies" when they are sick or in pain.
Try to seem sympathetic, he already went to his Doc. So that's good. If he is still feeling junk he can always go check with his Doc again.

And, I think he just did NOT listen to the Doc, and went ahead and did heavy activities TOO quickly.
His fault. But don't tell him that. I mean, men get irked if you tell them things like that. It is never their fault. Right?

And tell the kids, to be careful around Daddy, he had surgery.
When I had a c-section with my 2nd kid, I TOLD my eldest child to be careful, I had SURGERY and it still hurts and I have to do what the DOCTOR TELLS ME. And she understood.

My hubby had it done about 15 yrs ago. My best advice is to FOLLOW the Dr. Orders.

My hubby had plenty of frozen peas at his crotch but he wasn't in a lot of pain so like your hubby, he over did it and swelled up so much he thought his privates were going to burst!! Because of this, it took him a couple extra days to calm down but over all he resumed normal activities within a week to 10 days max.

Make sure you follow up with taking samples to the Dr to make sure you get the "all clear". That took my hubby over 4 months... I didn't think he'd ever get rid of those little swimmers. At the same time, I stayed on the bcp until my surgery about 10yrs later to make sure there was no oopsie!

Son-in-law just had this done. Got intimate with frozen peas for a couple of days, then he felt fine. He didn't do any heavy lifting, though. Hope this all works out for your husb.

You might suggest he try taking homeopathic Arnica for the bruising. It's so effective that my daughter had an MD recommend it after some varicose surgery. It seemed to really help the bruises and the pain.

Yeah, this is the thing about men and vasectomies. They are total wimps about it, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. My husband is a big, construction-worker, rugby player, macho man, and you would have thought the entire world was coming to an end when he had his vasectomy. First of all, he did not ice the area immediately afterward like he was told to, and he swelled up to the size of a grapefruit down there. So that was big trauma. He had a lot of bruising after that, because when you swell up like that, it causes issues. He was in pain from it for quite a while, a few weeks from what I recall. His doctor had also said that his vasectomy was very difficult for whatever reason, so maybe that contributed to the swelling and pain. Who knows.

Funny thing is, I had breast reduction surgery 6 days ago, and my husband just called to yell at me for not having sent out billing for our company last week. Um, dude, I JUST had surgery. My nipples were literally cut off and re-attached in a different place, and I have several feet of incisions running across my chest, which feels fantastic. But, yeah, apparently I don't even get a week off. Back to work. :-/

Uh, sounds to me like he's being whiny.

My DH was up and moving fine after a day of icing. Was told not to lift heavier than 10lbs for a week...which he listened to.
After that, he had zero issues and continued life normally.