Hello everyone! I had my surgery last August and my surgeon did the inguinal technique. I'm posting this just for general information and also to compare notes with those whose surgeons went through the scrotum. I wasn't expecting the surgery to be so difficult to recover from and the inguinal approach is sort of like a c section but with two small incisions. I have similar nerve damage as women who have c sections. The location of my incisions was onthe bikini line and the inguinal plane beneath is numb. It took several months to get over the little and not so little nerve shocks that happen when nerves are repairing themselves.

I had been on spironolactone for several years along with estradiol, so I never had any other issues. I'm very happy I had the surgery and not a second have I regretted it. I just wish I had done it sooner.

I wonder if the other method would have been easier to recover from and I suspect there would be fewer healing issues than I had.

Oddly enough, I was wondering exactly the same, but in the opposite direction. I had a scrotal orchie, and it's been kind of a rough week so far. It's still early, but my status is not as good as I'd hoped for by now. I've seen some simple-looking and quite nice results from the inguinal approach, though I've read it is more invasive and tougher to recover from.

It's likely that there are variable outcomes from both approaches, even with reasonably skilled and experienced doctors. Maybe a lot of overlap in the range of outcomes from both methods. Unfortunately, every one of us is only a sample of one!

Like you, I'm very pleased that I had this done. My worries, concerns and expectations I guess just need to be tempered with the satisfaction of the major result; I am now free of my balls!

I hope your recovery continues, and that we can wait out the various results of the physical operation to get to our desired end state.

My journey started with a left varicosele repair in my early '20s. That left a scar similar to but the opposite to an appedectomy. In 1998 I had a vasectomy, then a year later had it 'revised', because of chronic pain. A bilateral epididyectomy was performed, through the scrotum. The pain and recovery from that was arduous to say the least. I then under went a laproscopic cord denervation. It was done through 7 small incisions in my abdomen. That was an incredibly slow and painful recovery. Each time the surgeons went near me, my symptoms got worse. In august, 2002 I had a bilateral inguinal orchidectomy. Because of previous surgeries the surgeon had a difficult job getting my left testicle out. The right one came out easily. He took out at least 4" of the cords etc. I experienced 'pubic' numbness from the incisions down. My penis, scrotum and pubes were totally numb. Over about a year the feeling came back. I was well worth it for me because I was finally free from crippling testicular pain. We are all different, but I think inguinal would be months, scrotal, weeks? still having your ball cords could be a source of pain and discomfort? I hope all goes well for you

Mine were removed through the inguinal canals. I did not have any problems like that. I was pain free from the surgery in about 3 days. I only took one of the pain pills I was given. The 3rd day after surgery I was mowing the lawn...on a riding mower.

Mine was a radical inlingual canal but I have a 6" and 8" scars because he had to cut open both canels to get my testicles out because they were the size of tennis balls he also removed everything all the way to the prostate about 8" worth of stuff the first surgery on the right side was in January and the left side was in March and I'm still healing and can't lift anything over 10 lbs but mine was an extreme case.

My orchiectomy was from the scrotum and I was up and about the following day with minimal discomfort and after a week or so it was as nothing had happened. Now recovering from the complete removal of the scrotum a few years later was another matter, as I documented on my blog.

Can anyone who's had an orchiectomy after having had inguinal hernia repair answer this? My understanding is that the ends of the inguinal canal are nearly closed in the hernia repair surgery. If that's correct, I would guess those small openings would make it difficult to move (to express?) each testicle up from the scrotum into the inguinal canal. Does the surgeon need to go from both routes, "scrotal" to open the scrotum to get the testicles and everything BELOW the lower openings of each inguinal canal, and then "inguinal," from the inguinal canal on each side, to remove the cords ABOVE the lower openings of each inguinal canal?