Vasectomy reversal

BIGBACH · Post by **BIGBACH** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:38 am

Hi everyone I'm new to this site. Is there anyone out there that has had a vasectomy reversal don? I would love to talk to you

Natalie Anne · Post by **Natalie Anne** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 1:13 pm

my dh enquired about a vasec reversal but as it had been nearly 10 years since his vasec we were advised against it as the longer it's been, the less success you will have apparently.

He had surgical sperm retrieval instead and we got 10 vials (enough for 10 ivf cycles) and during the op they said that the state of the tubes meant that they could confirm that a reversal would not have worked.

However, a friend of mine had a reversal and less than a year later his wife was pregnant.

See what your consultant advises and good luck to you both, whatever you decide to do.

Natalie

pixiesmom · Post by **pixiesmom** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:40 pm

My husband had a reversal & everything looked like it worked. We have had unexplained infertility for 6 years after the reversal. His numbers are all normal so we don't know where the problem lies thus are in our 2ww for donor/donor cycle but, it would have been less expensive,less painful & worked just as well to have the aspiration if needed & sometimes they will have to do it anyway.

mara61200 · Post by **mara61200** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:03 pm

Natalie: i saw that your dh had the sperm retrieval. i am jsut getting ready to start my icsi cycle. my dh had vas reveral in jan and although it itnitially worked w/ a very low sperm count, after a few recent tests, there is nothing...obviously the speculation is that the scar tissue developed. so he is going to do the retrieval. what was it like? was it the day of the egg retrieval? is there any thing we have to worry aobut? our re seems to think not he says they can always retrieve from men who have had vasectomies...but i was curious if you had a smililar info from your re...... and what about the quallity of the sperm??? thanks so much!!!

Mara

Lizzie · Post by **Lizzie** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:12 pm

Hi

My husband had 2 reversals. There was about 1,000,000 sperm present after the 1st test after 1st reversal but nothing after that.

The 2nd reversal was unsuccessful.

The urologist advised that reason for this was that it was over 10 years since the vasectomy. He was 30 when he had vasectomy and then in his 40's for reversals.

Hope this helps.

Lizzie

KTF · Post by **KTF** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:51 am

Hi,

My DH has had a reversal (14 years after original op) which was unsuccessful. He has had two zero counts since then. They do say if the vas was a long time ago then the chances of reversal working are low.

If you do go for reversal, then ask if sperm is found at the time of the op, that they take some samples to have freezed. This way if the reversal is not successful at least your DH won't have to go through further ops if you go for IVF.

I wanted the clinic to do tests on me to check all was ok before DH's op. They wouldn't do this, but I did wonder what would be the point of a reversal if they subsequently found issues with me.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

KTx

Natalie Anne · Post by **Natalie Anne** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 12:09 pm

Mara

to answer your questions:

he had zero pain, one tiny bruise. The aspiration method failed so he had a testicular biopsy to retrieve the sperm. His consultant has a 100% success rate. 40% are aspiration and 60% by biopsy. he had a general anasthetic.

the sperm can't swim, just sort of twitch, so you can't have iui or ivf, only icsi.

they froze it on the day of retrieval and then they thaw it on the day of your egg collection. We got 10 vials so they just thawed one vial and kept the rest in the freezer for future attempts.

it's absolutely nothing to worry about - think of everything we have to go through and it seems like nothing in comparison!

please ask if you have any more questions.
Natalie
x

BIGBACH · Post by **BIGBACH** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 2:05 pm

We made a appointment for Dec. 2 for my husband to get a reversal. After talking to several Doctors online. They seemed so hopeful, they told us that we have a 82% success rate of sperm being found and a 45 to 60% rate of getting preggo. But after talking to more people it seems like there isn't much hope. Does anyone know anyone who a reversal worked? We already have sent a portion of the $ in. My Dh is 40 years old and has 2 kids. I am 30 and have a 2 year old from a previous marriage. He had the vas. done almost 14 years ago. We have both agreed that if this doesn't work that were not doing anything else. God just didn't intent for us to have a child together, but that's easier said that done. The doctors just made it sound soo hopeful. Now i feel like there isn't a lot of hope

I just don't want to get my hopes up to high.And my DH really believes it's going to work. He keeps talking about "when you get preggo" It's just very disheartening

taylorjools · Post by **taylorjools** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:45 pm

Hi Heather

I don't want to add to your worries, but this is worth you knowing:

My DH had a reversal after 10 year VAS and had a fantastic sperm count afterwards. Whenever we have been for tmt whether IUI or anything they were dead impressed with his sperm. There was however no way of gewtting pg without some kind of help because of antibodies, which are very common after a long-term vas reversal, which makes the sperm clump toghether. They can wash a sample and theoretically as long as you are OK you could do natural IUI cycles and get pg that way. Nicola Mark who is on this board has done that, there is an IUI thread.

As it turned out I have POF so we need donor eggs anyway which means then ICSI for us. However we had very low fertlisation (3/12 eggs) so we investigated dh sperm further via a pserm guru here in Germany. Under electron microscopy he found that dh had only 2% normal sperm (this technique would give around 15% normal in a healthy fertile male). What we don't KNOW yet is:
- will the TESE produce better sperm than from the ejaculate- we are waiting for that result
- Did the VAS antibodies cause this abnormal sperm?
- Did he always have this and are his kids (twins which means he only needed to have "one good shot") a miracle.
- Our clinic in Kiev still think we should go with some ejaculate too as they like fresh ejaculate best and do a mixture of techniques in the fertilisation.

We did the reversal because we wanted to get pg naturally. If I had known at the time about my issues I guess we would have gone with TESE from the start, although now we have the problem that our TESE samples are in Hamburg and our clinic is in Kiev (UKraine)!!!

try taking it a step at a time. Lots of people dio have succesful reversals, it just might be though that you'd get antibodies and need iui to help you afterwards, but that's nothing like IVF and if you get a natural cycle rythymn going then it's no meds for you really, and just scans and sperm prep to pay for..

Hope that helps

Love bigJ

BIGBACH · Post by **BIGBACH** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:53 pm

Big J thanks for the words of wisdom. I'm not really sure what all the abbv. are though I need to look them up to understand more. But thanks

taylorjools · Post by **taylorjools** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:04 pm

Hi Heather - sorry - techno speak

IUI is intra Unterine Insemination - basically they put the sperm direct in your womb via a tiny thin tube

Vas - vasectomy

TESE - basically testicular sperm apsiration

POF - premature ovarian failure (early menopause)

As I suggested, why not check out the "IUI girls" thread, as that might be the only thing you'd have to consider if you had successful reversal but with atnibodies. Any more questions plz ask

Love bigJ

Vasectomy reversal

Vasectomy reversal

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