: While a No-Scalpel Easy Vasectomy® is one of the safest procedures, there are still chances of minor complications, such as bleeding and infection. One potential post-surgery complication is a scrotal hematoma—a collection of blood inside the scrotum—and it occurs in approximately two to five percent of vasectomies.
Symptoms
Scrotal hematomas typically occur within a few days following a vasectomy procedure. They’re often accompanied by swelling, bruising and pain around the scrotum. The severity of one’s symptoms mainly depends on the size of the hematoma: a small hematoma may not have any symptoms at all or simply cause minimal swelling and discomfort, while a larger hematoma can result in extensive bruising and severe pain. After the swelling reduces, a hematoma generally feels like a hard lump in the scrotum.
Treatment
If you experience post-vasectomy discomfort such as significant bruising, swelling and unexpectedly intense pain, you may have developed a scrotal hematoma and will need to see your doctor immediately.
Depending on size, hematomas may gradually resolve on their own after a few weeks, and symptoms should diminish as the hematoma shrinks. Your doctor may recommend pain medications, a scrotal supporter, and hot baths to alleviate discomfort and speed up recovery. Surgical intervention may be necessary in cases of very large hematomas or arterial hematomas.
Prevention
While it’s impossible to completely eliminate the risk of developing a hematoma after your vasectomy, there are two crucial factors that can potentially help minimize the odds of it occurring.
Firstly, experience matters. In general, the more vasectomy operations a doctor has performed, the lower the chance of patients developing hematomas. One study found that “the incidence of hematomas was 4.6 percent for physicians performing 1–10 vasectomies annually, 2.4 percent for those performing 11–50 annually, and 1.6 percent for those performing >50 annually.”
Secondly, the no-scalpel vasectomy technique offers a number of benefits over the traditional vasectomy method, one of those being a lower risk of developing a post-vasectomy hematoma.
