Hi everyone, I’m not new to the forum because I’ve spend a lot of time reading here for the last months. But I wanted to add up to this forum because it has been very useful for me to recognize that my problems came from the grade 3 varicocele on the left side. And hope that my findings will prove that varicocele is a serious condition.
I just wanted to bring up my whole story with everything what has happened to me since 1,5 years ago. I’m now 24 and got the embolization done 2 weeks ago.
Ever since I know I had this varicocele on my left side, but I always thought it was just the spermatic cord and there was some semen collected what didn’t come out. I thought it was no real problem and thought when I would just masturbate I could get it out. Sometimes it seemed to be just fine so no reason for worries. (probably varicocele grade I) I had a sweet hot girlfriend for 1 year and sex life was great! No problems and I could last long enough to satisfy her and had morning woods and libido was pretty high. It is now April 2009, I moved to another place and got a heavy physical job. Which I liked because I like physical jobs and working out. Unloading 2 sea containers almost every day. I was wearing tight underwear because I sweat easily and because it’s a tough job on your system I had to make it as comfortable as possible. Though I wasn’t aware of the disaster what was about to unfold. 3 months into the job I noted that my **** didn’t pop up as easily as it usually did and when I was about to make love to my girlfriend. But I thought it was just because having sex was more like a habit than a desire. I remember telling one of my mates that I lacked interest in sex and the only reason why I did it was routine, there was no real desire anymore.
A few months later I went to holidays with my girlfriend and in the 2 weeks we only had sex like 3 times and it was really not what it should be, erectile dysfunction was apparent and I thought it came from disinterest in her though she is really hot. But my feelings for her just vaporized. We were about to break up during the holidays!
After the holidays I didn’t enjoy being with her as I did before, and I went to see my local friends to go out for smoking weed what she didn’t like and I address this to my rising feeling of disconnection to her. Another few months passed and there was the break up because there just was no chemistry anymore. But the break up felt light on me, I felt free to do what I wanted to do, working out at home doing pushups and pull-ups and smoking some weed again that made me feel happy and relaxed.
It’s now new years eve and my brother came back from Australia, I live in the Netherlands. And because I had not seen him for a half year I started smoking weed with him for 2 months. I noticed my stamina for working out going down really fast. Playing street football with my friends got me tired quickly and sweating like never before even in winter time when it was freezing. My blood pressure was measured at 158/95. So I decided to quit smoking weed and work on my blood pressure. Not knowing that I had this severe varicocele grade III in the mean time. Because it’s now a year since I started my physical job.
So I made big diet changes, started running again and cycling to work using intervals to strengthen my vascular system. Then when a friend of mine asked me to go out to a club, I went. And because I felt that it was time for a new girl in my life I came across a very sweet looking girl that night. I got in touch and we had our first date 1 week after the party.
She wanted to make love with me that night. But I was unable to get my **** up without manual stimulation as I already knew. A had been drinking some wine with her that evening what also made it impossible to get it up that night, but I satisfied her the oral way. That morning when we woke up we had sex because I was totally relaxed and my **** worked at some point. But the erection strength was bad and I could only last a few minutes. Then she told me that my **** was fading very easily after stimulation and that that was not OK! So I told her, well I need manual stimulation because I don’t get that exited anymore… (I thought having spontaneous erections was only possible until age 22) And I told her that I have not been horny since the past 5 months since the break up with my girlfriend. This event stressed me out to some point and I told her the easiliy fading might have due to my high blood pressure.
Went to search the internet for high blood pressure and erectile dysfunction and bang! That must have been the cause. And I kept working lowering my blood pressure. Also I started taking supplements to strengthen my system and improve my erectile strength. I’ve been taking L-arginine AKG, L-Citrulline, ginkgo biloba, omega-3 and multivitamins and lots of peanuts for the beneficial effect on HDL and dark chocolate. And at some point it seemed that my **** hardened up pretty good when jacking off. I was happy that my findings paid off!
Still unaware that I was a sinking ship! Ever since that day that I went to see my new girlfriend I had the flu on and off. Every time someone had flu at work he passed it on to me. And I got rid of it in 3 weeks, then it came back after a week. And ever-since my nose was ****ed up. It seemed that I was unable to heal from it. But I continued work and told the people at work that there were poison gasses in the containers that got me sick over and over. They told me that was impossible because they are checked in the harbor. The weeks passed and I noticed pain in the lower abdomen at the appendix location. But I was not going to give up work or my girlfriend.
2 months since I came to know my new girlfriend and sex was only there a few times for a couple minutes. At work while standing I noted a dull pulsating pain in my sack. I went to the bathroom to check it out and noticed this extreme varicocele grade III. That same day I went search the internet for what that is called and went to see my doctor and said that I have varicoceles. She said that was obvious and that I should be treated for this.
All thing I did like working out and going to parties destroyed my immune system and the morning after I couldn’t breathe through my nose and the pain in my lower abdomen got worse. I didn’t drink much while partying because I was aware of my problem. I got all the symptoms of low-testosterone. And started to get depressed because I couldn’t enjoy myself anymore and was very uncertain if I would ever feel the same again. ED was getting more severe and I lost all interest in woman. I just could not get horny at all.
Now 4 months into the relationship and I got the embolization done. The day I was treated I was in the hospital and had a spontaneous erection! I was like, how the hell could this be cured this easily. But it was only there because the doctor had probably given me some relaxation meds. Then 1 week after the embolization I got really freaked out because the varicoceles seemed to be as large as the were before the embolization and I thought it had failed. But I was not in pain from it anymore so I held myself that it has been a success since. Now I am exactly 2 weeks and 1 day since the operation and I have been working out, had a few sexual dreams and feel my energy coming back. But I can hardly control my emotions and get paranoid easily which got me in trouble with my current relationship. I asked to give me some time to recover on myself and get to know my former self again and know how to deal with all the feelings that come with it. During this episode in my life I almost forgot who I used to be and what a happy life I lived before. So I would say, testosterone is affected along with a lot of other hormones when someone suffers from varicoceles grade III. I found connections from hormones on the high blood pressure, weak immune system, and libido. And of course sweating really easily who some of the people around here seem to have the same issue. Same for body hair, facial hair coming in very slow and less hair on my arms than my sisters!
