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> You're right that it doesn't stop sperm production, just emission. As for "the drip"; that's pre-ejaculate, which doesn't contain sperm inherently, but can pi
by cstrahan 1y ago
> You're right that it doesn't stop sperm production, just emission. As for "the drip"; that's pre-ejaculate, which doesn't contain sperm inherently, but can pick up residual sperm in the urethra from a prior ejaculation.
I’d like to stress that point a bit.
I had a vasectomy about a year ago, and being the weirdo that I am, I figured I’d see how much sperm remained in my ejaculate (and for how long) after the procedure.
I waited maybe two or three days after the procedure, and then for the next three days, I’d collect three samples per day and take a look under my microscope. In the first four or five samples, the swimmers were swimming hard. Told my brother (who had been trying for a kid for a couple years, and had observed his own samples trying correlate diet and other factors to improved motility) about the straight laser beams I was seeing in the scope — he nearly had a fit when I described how long it took them to go from one side of the slide to the other under the given magnification.
It was the ninth sample when there were very few observable sperm, and what remained looked kinda drunk and unmotivated.
All of that to say: if you’re going to get a vasectomy, when your doctor tells you to abstain from condom-less/birthcontrol-less sex until you come back for a sperm count, take that seriously. It’s amazing how motile they are even when kinda old, and also amazing how many hang around downstream of the vas deferens after many ejaculations. And, while rare, sometimes the vas deferens do manage to reconnect.
And a bonus tip along these lines: testosterone replacement, even without hCG, is not a reliable form of birth control. I’m on (and was on) TRT, without hCG, and the concentration of sperm under the scope looked higher than any YouTube video I could find at the same magnification (meanwhile my bro is taking silly amounts of hCG and struggling). I hear a lot of people joke about TRT having the beneficial side effect of infertility, but that’s far from a certainty.
- johnisgood 1y agoThank you for sharing this!
- alabastervlog 1y agoRelatedly, this is also why the “failure” rate for vasectomy isn’t vanishingly close to 0%: it’s almost all dudes having unprotected sex in the first month or so after the procedure. Spontaneous reconnection happens but is extremely rare. If you can follow the doctor’s orders for a few weeks, vasectomy’s failure rate may as well be 0%.
- harshreality 1y agoWhat's the mechanism for that? Maybe a few sperm are stuck in the sperm ducts past the point they were severed, but the ducts are cut and sealed, aren't they? Even if they weren't sealed, it would be Russian Roulette trying to get across the gap in what's effectively just body cavity space. My expectation would be the first sample might have lower but significant sperm count, and each subsequent sample would decrease dramatically until any residual sperm died and the count was zero. You're talking about motility, not count, but it doesn't sound like you noticed a drastic decrease from sample to sample. That doesn't seem right according to my understanding.
- cstrahan 1y agoWell, to be clear, I didn’t actually count the sperm, as I was more interested in a rough, qualitative (rather than rigorous, quantitative) observation. That said, yeah, the relative amount of sperm didn’t drop off noticeably at the offset. And I think that kind of makes sense: as someone with a relatively short refractory period, let’s suppose I ejaculate two or three times in 5 minutes: I doubt (though I could be wrong) that my body actually evacuated all of the seminal fluid (and fully replaced it) each time. I would bet there’s simply a bunch “left in the tank”. Would be interesting to hear from a urologist (or someone with similar expertise).