I guess this is old stuff, but not one I had ever seen before. It starts with a father asking for help related to his son who had both testicles removed due to being undescended, and near the end of the thread there is a guy responding who had the same thing himself.

http://www.healthboards.com/boards/mens ... nosis.html

My son at 22 mos had testicles removed, need some feed back on his prognosis

Hi I posted this in the childrens section and realized that maybe someone here can help me with this!! thanks

My son who is now 5 years old, had undescended testicles. Actually when he was born his pedi said he felt them, but after 4 or 5 mos. told me he may have been mistaken and referred me to an pedi endro. who referred me to a pedi urologist. He then told me when my son was 18 mos old that they would go in and it could take up to 3 surgeries to decend his testicles.

Much to my horror, when the surgery was said and done , the Dr. told me he had removed his testicles because they were not good. Even though it would cause no possible problems until my son was a teen.

I can't tell you what I have felt like in the past 3 years, and yes I did see a lawyer, that is the first ? everyone asks, and even though it was considered a catastrophic case, the lawyer would not touch the case.

I have been for the past 3 years trying to find info on many aspects of this, or a support group.....much to my surprise I have found none. I moved to a state near to the one where the procedure was performed and of course it is the old "boys club" where I pretty much was fed with bull. I ask this pedi endro to refer me to a site or support group for this type of thing and he responded with " most parents don't want to discuss this kind of thing in public.

Considering that:

My son will have to be told he can never father children

He will always look different than other kids, if he wants to look normal he will have to have artificial testicles put in just for appearence sake.

I also wonder how this will effect him emotionally, and will he blame me for trusting the drs.

He will need to be on hormonal steroids, which can cause rage, ( he already has very scary episodes now!). Not to mention the side effects of the hormones.

I guess I am looking for people who have children that went through this at a young age and how their child progressed. And also for some support group, so I don't feel so all alone dealing with this.

My poor son also has severe food allergies and as I said rage issues ( he is OCD/anxiety, and possibly bipolar).

He has already gone through so much in his young life. I want to make this as easy for him as possible.

I am looking for some help here, it eats away at me daily, I think I have come to terms with this and then I realize I have not.

I am so sorry for the long post, and thank you if anyone can help.......I think the procedure is called...... pediatric bilateral orchiectomy, but not 100% sure ,even after reading thru his records.

Thank You all for your feed back ahead of time.....c-22

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I want to tell you first of all that I am a man in my 40's that was born with the same (or at least very similar) condition as your son. After three unsuccessful surgeries by age 7, we opted for the artificial implants (about age 10). For me that was very important, because as an athlete, I was showering with the other players from age 11 on. The only thing that made me different in the locker room was the surgical scars, I am sure the new procedures don't leave nearly the amount of scaring.

At age 14, I got the new (adult size) implants and started on hormone therapy. One interesting aspect of this therapy is that the doctors were able to delay the onset of my major growth spurt and so instead of the 5'11'' my bone age projected me to be, I grew to be 6'4".

I don't know where you heard about the rage you talk about, but I was never hopped up on steroids. I used and still use the amount that I would normally produce (age appropriate)- your doctor can monitor with blood tests the levels of hormone in your sons system. Your son can have shots as often as weekly ( for an even level) or monthly. During my teenage growth years I had them every other week and after high school I found once a month to be most comfortable.

I don't know how you will react to this next part, so I will tell you how it was in my life.

First of all, I won't lie to you and tell you I think this is a blessing in my life or that I am glad to have been born with this condition. I struggled as a early teenager not being the "same" as the other guys, and wondering if I could "perform" with a girl. Would they be able to tell the difference? Was I adequate? By age 15 all those questions were answered and I looked at my condition as a passport to fun. I never had to worry about getting anyone pregnant and back then, the only disease's to worry about you could take care of with a shot or two. I convinced myself that since God didn't give me the ability to have kids, he gave me a penis for fun.

The main reason I wanted to write to you is I want to tell you that YOU need to relax about this. My dad made it his life's mission to overcompensate and try to make it all "normal". He even went as far a adopting a little girl to show me that having "blood offspring" was not what was important in your family. What a disaster....

Just love him, encourage him, accept him for who he is, don't make him carry your guilt.

Anyway, I'll tell you how the story ends... I am married, for 16 years now, have two wonderful children that only know that I am their father. We had both kids by artificial insemination and so to the rest of the world every thing looks "normal". People tell us that the kids have "my eyes" or "my nose" and some say that the kids look more like me than my wife, some say they look more like her.

But do you know whay really matters, they are my children and I thank the Lord every day that He has entrusted me to be their father here on earth.

I hope this helps.

I liked it...nice read and good advice there at the end...

It seems criminal that that first doctor turned the boy into a eunuch. Surely there was no reason for that. Don't undescended testicles mostly come down later in life?