[nala139]

Hi, I have not posted here before. My name is Megann and DH and I have been TTC for over a year with no luck. We have not had any workups yet but I did notice that DH had a left sided varicocele that I thought may be causing our problems. He went to a urologist yesterday and she said she recommended the surgery rather than the emolization because the emolization is only temporary and the varicocle will most likely come back. I have been reading a lot about this and it seems like embolization is the treatment of choice nowadays and I cannot find any info about a higher recurrance rate. It seems like the surgery is way riskier. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the surgery or what anyone's opinion was about this. Thanks!

[ajs0810]

Hi - saw your note and wanted to add our experience with varicocele. DH was first diagnosed in Oct '07 with bilateral varicocele - his SA at the time showed basically normal counts & motility but only 4% morphology. We were just planning to start TTC and figured we'd have issues - then conceived our DS on the 1st try the following month. Based on that great luck, we assumed all was fine and didn't start TTC #2 until Jan '10, again getting pg on 1st try but m/c at 7 wks - and that brings us to today! We learned the hard way that varicoceles are often an issue with secondary infertility (had we known, we likely would have had him do the repair after DS was born) After 8 months of unsuccessful trying, DH had the surgery to repair both varicoceles - outpatient procedure (in/out of hospital within 6 hrs), discomfort for 3-4 days and overall he rebounded quickly.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that this will help our efforts and avoid any further MA. Understand that improvement may take a few months but will know more when we do our next follow up with his MD in a few weeks ...

Good luck to you!

[nala139]

Thanks for responding! Good luck, I hope that it works fast for you and you get your bfp in the next few months!

[TTCin2010]

My dh had the surgery in Oct for a grade 3 varicocele it was done at an outpatient center and he was home (no joke) within 3 hours. He had it done on a Thursday and was back to work/school by Tuesday. We will find it in the next few weeks if it was successful

[nala139]

Karen, I would love to hear the results of your DH's follow up SA when you get it. I really hope it works for you!

[wishfulgal]

Hi and . My DH had the varicocele repair in September 2010 and his counts went from 3.2 million/ml with 36% motility to 12.8 million/ml with 50% motility, normal speed of motility and the total count was above normal. We conceived 3 months after his repair, but sadly that ended in an early miscarriage so we are back to TTC.

We are also dealing with secondary infertility. We opted not to do the embolization for the same reason, DH's urologist said it had a higher recurrence rate. My DH was sore for a couple of weeks but all in all we are happy he did it.