Retractile testicle / ascending testicle

[DHTH]

Hi there,

My son has this problem and i was wondering and would be very grateful if anyone had experience with this, or know how to deal with it.
He has been offered an operation, where they will be attaching the testicle to "wallet" and removing the muscle tissue which pulls it up.
To me it just don't feel right with operation, and i would wish there could be another way.

Any advice or knowledge is most welcome and appreciated.

Here is an explanation of it:

A retractile testicle is a testicle that may move back and forth between the scrotum and the groin. When the retractile testicle is residing in the groin, it may be easily guided by hand into its proper position in the scrotum — the bag of skin hanging behind the penis — during a physical examination.

For most boys, the problem of a retractile testicle goes away sometime before or during puberty, the time when an out-of-place testicle moves to its correct location in the scrotum and stays there permanently.

About a quarter of the time, the retractile testicle stays up in the groin and is no longer movable. When this happens, the condition is called an ascending testicle.

 

[trendsetter37]

How old is your son? My brother had this issue...I think? We just didn't have the term for it back then. However, his testicles (both of them were ascended) eventually descended into their proper positions without surgery.

I am not sure whether or not he was offered a surgery for his specific case but they did eventually return to their normal positions after awhile. This also occurred around elementary school for him. Hope that helps, I would think that if your son isn't experiencing pain and is young then I would tend to shy away from the surgery for awhile or at least until he hits puberty but even then I probably wouldn't go for a surgical procedure if his condition is not life threatening.

Surgeries down in that area can be traumatic. OSIT.

 

[mcb]

Hi there,

My son has this problem and i was wondering and would be very grateful if anyone had experience with this, or know how to deal with it.
He has been offered an operation, where they will be attaching the testicle to "wallet" and removing the muscle tissue which pulls it up.
To me it just don't feel right with operation, and i would wish there could be another way.

Any advice or knowledge is most welcome and appreciated.

Here is an explanation of it:

A retractile testicle is a testicle that may move back and forth between the scrotum and the groin. When the retractile testicle is residing in the groin, it may be easily guided by hand into its proper position in the scrotum — the bag of skin hanging behind the penis — during a physical examination.

For most boys, the problem of a retractile testicle goes away sometime before or during puberty, the time when an out-of-place testicle moves to its correct location in the scrotum and stays there permanently.

About a quarter of the time, the retractile testicle stays up in the groin and is no longer movable. When this happens, the condition is called an ascending testicle.

I can't advise you about surgery, but I have a personal connection with these types of problems and I can tell you that there may be more to it than just this, and you would do well to do your own, thorough, research before making a decision. Medical practitioners may tend to look at it as a "mechanical problem" that can fixed with surgery, while in reality it may be your only warning about a deeper underlying situation. If that is the case, doing the surgery and then being done with it would not be wise.

In addition, the "fix" may have undisclosed risks as well as future consequences. People often discover only in retrospect what effects a surgery or other treatment has, as I have experienced.

In my own situation the information I would have needed to avoid what happened was something that was only known to specialists of the sort that you only talk to once an emergency has developed. So do your own research.

 

[Palinurus]

Hi DHTH,

Sorry to hear about your son's predicament. What can or should be done seems highly dependable on his current age which you didn't mention. As long as he hasn't reached maturity I think you could just wait and see what happens naturally -- provided he's not in any durable pain from it. In the meantime, systematic observation of the instances wherein this phenomenon occurs would be helpful in determining the exact cause of it -- assuming it's not a permanent issue as of yet.

As far as I know, spontaneous migration of a testicle back into the groin could be caused by a relative shortness of some muscle tissue and/or a relative wideness or openness of the groin area. As far as I remember, there are specific exercises to remedy that. Similarly when there would also be a weight problem (obese).

The main resulting problem with a permanent ascension would be the temperature of the semen which runs too high while a testicle remains long term within the body, and that would have detrimental effects on the quality of sperm as the scrotum mainly serves as an out-of-body cooling device. However, when that area gets too cold it naturally gets retracted again somewhat into the body to keep its contents warm enough. So some movement over there is completely normal.

As for myself, being nearly 70 yo now I've always been able my whole life long to move both of my testicles manually into the groin area and back out again at will without any effort or pain, and certainly without any detrimental effect in the long run. All is still fully functional. Nevertheless, as far as I'm aware I've never experienced spontaneous retraction nor prolonged ascension.

Hope this helps a bit. :)

 

[DHTH]

Thank you everyone for your answers.

My son is 7 years old and I'm very inclined to believe that it will work out by itself. But the exact thing that is being mentioned about the temperature and semen is to some extent critical. I myself experienced a quite dramatic event in that area as a child about his age and therefore I'm also taking into account, the mental trauma an operation can have. The testicle spends around 75%-80% of the time up in the warmth and that is too long and will affect the production of semen. But it is still capable to produce hormons though.

My girlfriend is a bodycoach and works also a lot with deep tissue massage "rebalancing" and after some further research, we think it might be possible to make it better with massaging.

Thanks for input everyone, i'm happy about that.

 

[Thor]

Hi DHTH,

Thanks for bringing this question to the forum. I'm always happy when people have the courage to reach out with personal questions as it's a token of trust. Every time someone reads a personal question being raised and see how the network helps by giving perspectives and offer suggestions it makes it easier to ask the questions that we have ourselves.

FWIW, when I was born, I had a retracted testicle. The doctors advised a wait-and-see approach because sometimes it will fall down by itself. The concern was the same as has been mentioned in this thread that the sperm would suffer if the testicle was not able to get cooled down by falling. When I was 10 years old I broke my leg and had to have surgery and the doctors recommended that since I was going through full anaesthesia anyway this would be a good time to also perform the testicle lowering surgery. Also, if I remember correctly, the wanted to do the surgery before entering puberty.

I am not into the specifics of what muscles or tissue was being affected but from my perspective, it was a pretty minor thing. As an adult I've never suffered any adverse consequences as far as I know although it's impossible for me to know what things would've been like had I not had the surgery. Sexually I function normally and bio-mechanically the testicle that had surgery works just like the other one in the sense that it retracts when exposed to cold water (it's quite evident with the cold-bath protocol). I don't have any children but my ex-wife was pregnant at one time, so the sperm is also functioning as intended.

I would personally always prefer to avoid surgery if possible. However, my personal experience from this surgery has been quite uneventful. If there's any question that I can help you answer, I'd be more than happy to help in any way I can.

 

[DHTH]

Thank you Thor for your comment on this issue. It makes me happy that people take time to read and actually answer to my post. I'm glad that you didn't have any problems after your surgery as a child, and it went so well.

 

[davey72]

I had this very operation when i was i believe fourteen. It helped me personally. What they did was sew or stitch the testicle to the lining as the problem they said was that i have varicose veins that wrap around the testicle. It was often very painful but only mainly bothered me when i was aroused or fooling around for some time without release. And then it was extremely painful if there was a release. I was told that there would be a chance that that testicle may end up infertile. Im not sure if this iste same problem as i still have the veins but they cannot wrap around anymore. It was a day procedure. Not sure what they call it but i was in and out in a few hours but took awhile to recover. If you have any questions that i can answer from personal experience i would be glad to answer them.
I just reread the post and realize this is not the same thing but i think the surgery experience may be quite similar.