IT LEFT ME IN AGONY FOR 20 YEARS

Colin Davis, 65, a retired charity manager, is married to Marie, 61. They live in sandhurst, Berkshire, and have two grown-up children, Christopher, 26, and suzanna, 24. Colin says:

IT’s now 24 years since I had my vasectomy, at the age of 41, when my son was 18 months old and my daughter was six months.

Having come to parenthood a little late, my wife and I decided we only wanted two children — and it was an easy decision to go under the knife. But I desperately wish I’d known more about the side-effects.

Because in the intervening years, what started out as a niggling, occasional discomfort in my testicles built up into agonising, sometimes unbearable levels of pain.

It started off fine. I recovered well after the operation and, within weeks, was back on my feet. Then, a few months later, my left testicle became painful and swollen. My GP said it might be an infection and prescribed me a course of antibiotics. It settled within a few days, but started again a few months later.

I ended up having increasingly painful attacks, sometimes in both testicles, lasting a day or two, about seven times a year.

Not only was it painful, but it was incredibly debilitating. I could wake in the night with this persistent lowlevel ache. If I was working, I’d have to sit there in increasing discomfort.

If I had anything nice planned — swimming or an outing — it would spoil everything. It got in the way of even the simplest pleasures in life, such as a round of golf or a countryside walk with Marie.

This lasted on and off for two decades. I’ve always been a grit-yourteeth kind of person, but this was beyond anything I had experienced before. Once, it persisted for three days. My testicles felt really engorged. It was just awful. All I could do was take ibuprofen and go to bed. But as soon as the drugs wore off, the pain returned with a vengeance.

Eventually, after seeing countless doctors around the world over two decades, one finally associated my pain with the fact I’d had a vasectomy. I was astonished — I’d never imagined that this could be the cause.

Apparently, it had all been caused by a build-up of sperm in the epididymis — the coiled tube behind the testis — which was setting off an inflammatory reaction. The sperm is supposed to be absorbed back into the body after the operation, but in my case, for some reason, it had become lodged and was irritating the surrounding tissue.

I scheduled a vasectomy reversal and, two years ago, had the operation. The pain vanished almost immediately afterwards, and I haven’t suffered since. I can’t turn back the clock on my vasectomy, but this was quite a price to pay.