I recently heard about a guy who had to get one of his balls removed because they became twisted around eachother. I have now become incredibly paranoid that I am going to somehow (while sleeping, etc) twist my balls. Please tell me I’m worrying about nothing. Is it very common to have this happen? Why does it happen?
Happened to a friend of mine when he walked into a doorframe, but he didn’t have to have anything removed. They just went in there and untwisted it.
I think you would only have to have it removed if it were strangulated and became necrotic or something.
I had something my doc called a “torsion”, a (blood?, fluid?) vessel that somehow got wrapped around something.
I wasn’t offered any treatment. I was in pain for about a week until I saw a doc. And I got no real examination, she decided from my description of symptons (pain inside the sack, thaw greatly increased with movement) that’s what it must be.
The pain stopped about a week later, presumably after something died (note, I had no insurance at the time).
A few year later I had a vasectomy, and her diagnosis was confirmed. They found some dead tissue in there. I never did find out WHAT died – I still have feeling in both testicles.
I’d appreciate it if any medical person can further enlighten me.
or just google “testicular torsion” for tons of references in a variety of complexities
Happened to me when I was a kid. Got kicked in the nuts and they got all twisted up. They put me under and went in, untwisted the little buggers and sewed me back up. They swelled to the size of oranges…boy, that’s traumatic for a 12 year old. I couldn’t walk for at least 3 days.
Hell, just ask me! I’m known around here as “the guy with the tacked down balls.”
In my own research, in which you can imagine I was intensely interested in accuracy, I have learned the following things about man’s best friend other than everything between dogs and tapeworms, the testicular torsion.
[ul]
[li] Torsions can happen to any male with testicles, although the condition is reported more often in those who play sports. They can occur during physical exertion (which I presume includes sex), during one’s sleep (as it happened to me, several times), or seemingly at random.[/li]
[li]There appears to be a predisposition for it, although this is not yet confirmed as far as I know.[/li]
[li]Torsions are very bad news, as they can cut off the blood supply to the testicle and “kill” it within six to eight hours. Others on these boards have doubted me, but I was warned at the hospital that a dead testicle can cause infection and even gangrene. Just a couple of months ago, I had a bout of what was diagnosed as epidiymitis, but I have the lingering suspicion that it may have been necrotic tissue getting infected (that’s just plain paranoia talking… I hope).[/li][li]Army Ranger medics consider the condition serious enough to warrant helicopter evacuation from field training maneuvers, while other wounds–including, I am told, some broken bones–are not considered so worthy (that “fact” comes by word of mouth, though). [/li]
[li]Torsions most often manifest themselves in the counterclockwise direction, looking down. I’m proud to say that in my own, last instance I displayed a notable double torsion, where Mr. Right was in the 95th percentile counterclockwise direction with a half-twist, and Mr. Left was in an ultra rare quarter-turn clockwise. [/li]
[li] The favored solution for such a situation is corrective surgery, known as orchiopexy, or sometimes cryptorchidopexy. Now, I don’t know Latin very well, but I suspect the latter term means, “trick the poor bastard onto the operating table and then tie down the Bowery Boys.” That’s just what happened to me. The second time. The first time, I was too smart (read: too stupid) for their game and didn’t “drop on by” the Emergency Room for a checkup. When I came back a second time with the same symptoms less than a year later, they told me I could only pick up my pain prescription at the ER. I shit you not, twenty minutes after I walked into the joint I was being rolled into the operating room singing the Ramones. Very clever, Mr. Mercotan.[/ul][/li]
As best I can tell, an orchiopexy works like this. An inch-long incision is made in the scrotum on both sides. One or more permanent stitches are made through each testicle and into the inner wall of the scrotum, essentially holding them in place so that they can no longer go astray. Then the incisions are sewed up with a few biodegradeable stitches. But sometimes, the biodegradeable stitches do not degrade, and they are sometimes pulled out by hand. Yes, I know this from experience.
After that, you can expect your balls to swell to the size of a grapefruit or larger, and if you’re lucky, turn black or at least an unhealthy shade of violet. The pain is… well, nothing, really.
Okay, I’m lying. I now put out cigar butts in the palm of my hand as a party trick. At the risk of getting spiritual, there is a certain liberation to be had from being freed from the fear of what I suspect is close to ultimate pain. You get used to it, and while it is always annoying, it ceases to be such a big deal after five or six months. I was always a big potsmoker, but tried hard not to be one of those pansy “medical marijuana” types. Now, I prefer the pansies that are white, yellow, and purple.
Many guys would be suprised at how well they know the way their package behaves during everyday use. Because The Boys ain’t sitting the way they used to, I had to learn all over again how to sit, how to stand, how to walk, how to dress. You’d think that one would learn quickly how to do such things, what with all the negative reinforcement, but that unfortunately was not the case for me. I’d also like to say that the pain goes away eventually, but to date, eleven months and and a week or so since it happened, it has not. At this point I have resigned myself to a certain amount of background pain and just tune it out, like radio static. My balls were always extremely sensitive to begin with, so I may be an unusual case.
There was a temporary benefit from the operation, in that my balls were half again as large as they had been before the operation. Looked nice in the mirror. The urologist told me that might be permanent, but unfortunately that has not proven to be the case.
I have not had sex since my operation, so I can’t tell you about that. My shrink says I’m afraid. Well, duh! I pay this guy for what?
Anyway, that’s about all I know. Are you crossing your legs? Pshaw. You think that’s bad, let me tell you about the story I read about that poor bastard in Korea who had the his huevos unravel on him courtesy of an artillery shell…
backin’ up Sofa King here. I got the TT in high school, and the pain is extreme. At first, it was as though I’d been kicked there, which is alarming enough when you have been kicked there, but when you haven’t, you start to get suspicious. Then over the course of a couple hours it escalated to the point where any movement whatsoever transported me to a town called Testicular Agony, population: 2. (two balls that is) Went to the emergency room and before I knew it I was on a gurney with the nurse asking me to count backwards from 10 (and I’m thinking, “is she going to look at my balls?”). Woke up with a nice set of stitches on the ol’ bag. My stitches were up the middle, however, and my recollection of the doctor’s explanation was that they sewed a wall in between the boys so they couldn’t wrassle.
The doctor said they suspect that heredity can make one more likely to have this occur, and indeed my father and brother both had it. I recall sitting in the doctor’s office with him and my mom, filled with dread, just waiting for him to proclaim that this was all caused by masturbation. Thank god he didn’t.
Well, at least it got me out of P.E. for a couple of weeks.
All in all, I don’t recommend it.
Oh, and Sofa King: don’t feel bad about being “the guy with the tacked down balls”…I went bowling with my oh-so-sensitive friends after The Incident, and they punched my name in as “TwistyTestes” on the big overhead scorekeeper. 
Oh, why did I open this thread?
My boys… my boys my boys… oh they ache in sympathy… I cant keep from grimacing…
I’ve been told it’s much more common with men whose testicles hang level instead of the usual; one hanging lower than the other.
Mine turned a couple of times before they figured it out what it was. Yes the pain is bad, and peeing the first time after surgery is an experience in itself but it has made me feel kind of impervious to pain. Sadly enough i had no swelling .For me the worst part was meeting the urologist, who turned out to be my next door neighbour and his nurse my best friends mother :eek: as I was 16 at the time this made me uncomfortable to no end.
Sofa King I’m sorry to hear you’re still in pain, I can’t even image what you must be going through.
I opened this thread looking for a bit of comfort, like the OP, and hoping that this horrible condition was so rare that I need not worry.
You folks have been very unhelpful. I’m in pain just thinking about it. I’m not sure if I can actually get up from my chair. Would someone please bring me some food and a bucket of ice?
One of my friends, thinking of me when she read it, told me there was a recent article in a sports magazine (Sports Illustrated?) about torsions. It seems as if they may be far more common among football players than previously thought. Apparently, a lot of athletes just ignore the condition, which is bad news because it can lead to infertility or in some cases… death!
Heheheh. I’m having way too much fun with this. Hell, I’ve earned it, dammit.
Anyway, since we rarely read about such things, this led some of my friends to speculate that torsions may be euphemized in the sports press as “pulled groins.” Makes me wonder a little bit about Earl Campbell and his famous recurring injury…
Seriously, though, if you think you might be sporting these symptoms, you owe it to yourself to get it checked out right away. I hide behind the horrors of the process with a lot of black humor and tail-fanning, but the truth of the matter is that it is a fairly common, potentially dangerous condition. The alternative to getting it looked at (and possibly, um, “fixed,” heheh) is far, far worse in the long run.