Can you get vasectomy reversed

Vasectomy reversal is surgery to undo a vasectomy. During the procedure, a surgeon reconnects each tube vas deferens that carries sperm from a testicle into the semen. After a successful vasectomy reversal, sperm are again present in the semen, and you may be able to get your partner pregnant.

Many factors affect whether a reversal is successful in achieving pregnancy, including time since a vasectomy, partner age, surgeon experience and training, and whether you had fertility issues before your vasectomy. Deciding to have a vasectomy reversal may happen for several reasons, including loss of a child, a change of heart or remarriage, or to treat chronic testicular pain after vasectomy. Our caring team of Mayo Clinic experts can help you with your health concerns.

Get started at Mayo Clinic Men's Health. Almost all vasectomies can be reversed. However, this doesn't guarantee success in conceiving a child.

Vasectomy reversal can be attempted even if several years have passed since the original vasectomy — but the longer it has been, the less likely it is that the reversal will work. When choosing a doctor, don't be afraid to ask questions about how many vasectomy reversals the doctor has done, the type of techniques used and how often the vasectomy reversals have resulted in pregnancy.

Also ask about the risks and potential complications of the procedure. Make sure you know what steps you need to take before surgery. Your doctor will probably ask you to stop taking certain medications, including blood-thinning medications and pain relievers, such as aspirin or ibuprofen Advil, Motrin IB, others , because they can increase your risk of bleeding.

Bring tightfitting undergarments, such as an athletic supporter, to wear after surgery. This will support your scrotum and hold bandages in place. Arrange for someone to drive you home after surgery. Surgery generally takes about two to four hours or longer. You may need additional time to recover if the procedure is done with general anesthesia.

Ask your doctor when you can expect to go home after surgery. A vasectomy reversal reconnects the severed vas deferens, the tube that carries sperm from each testicle. During a vasectomy reversal, the severed ends of the vas deferens are reattached to one another.

In some cases, the vas deferens may be attached directly to the epididymis — the part of the testicle where sperm matures. Doctors usually perform vasectomy reversals at a surgery center or hospital. The procedure is generally done on an outpatient basis — without an overnight stay.

Some surgeons can do the surgery in the clinic, but you'll want to make sure that the surgeon is able to do a more complex repair vasoepididymostomy in the clinic, if that becomes necessary. Success rates depend in part on what our surgeon finds during the procedure. If sperm is present within the vas deferens, the tubes that carry your sperm, he simply connects the two ends together in a very minor procedure.

Other factors are at play in determining pregnancy once sperm are present again. The age of the mother and the health of your sperm are just two reasons for disparate pregnancy rates after vasectomy reversals.

After age 50, the number of normal, healthy sperm tends to decrease; in addition, the motility of the sperm their ability to swim is affected. Our surgeons at Arizona Urology can also retrieve your sperm during a vasectomy reversal to use during in vitro fertilization if that is your preference. Americans are no strangers to cardiovascular disease, which affects nearly half of adults in the United States.

Your urologist will take fluid, "vasal fluid" from the vasal end closest to the testis. Your doctor will check to see if it has sperm in it. At this point, there are 2 types of reversal procedures you can have.

If there is sperm in the vasal fluid it shows that the path is clear between the testis and where the vas was cut. This means the ends of the vas can then be joined. The term for reconnecting the ends of the vas is "vasovasostomy. Pregnancy occurs in about 55 out of partners.

If there is no sperm in the vasal fluid, it may mean back pressure from the vasectomy caused a form of "blowout" in the epididymal tube. This "blowout" can lead to a block. Your urologist will need to go around the block and join the upper end of the vas to the epididymis instead. This is called a "vasoepididymostomy" and it serves the same purpose as the vasovasostomy.

Vasoepididymostomy is more complex than vasovasostomy, but the results are nearly as good. Sometimes vasovasostomy is done on one side and vasoepididymostomy on the other. Healing should be rather quick and fairly easy. Pain after surgery is most often controlled with pills. About 50 out of men say the pain after the reversal is like after their vasectomy. Pain bad enough to need medications rarely lasts longer than a few days to a week.

Most men can return to their normal routine and light work within a week. If your job is strenuous, ask your urologist when you can return to work. It may take 4 months to a year for your partner to get pregnant after vasectomy reversal. Some women get pregnant in the first few months, while others may take years. Pregnancy rates can depend on the amount of time between the vasectomy and reversal.

Sperm return to the semen faster and pregnancy rates are highest when the reversal is done sooner after the vasectomy. Next to pregnancy, testing the sperm count is the only way to tell if the surgery worked. Your urologist will test your semen every 2 to 3 months until your sperm count holds steady or your partner gets pregnant. Sperm often appear in the semen within a few months after a vasovasostomy.

It may take from 3 to 15 months after a vasoepididymostomy. A full work-up should be performed before undergoing a vasectomy reversal as the success rate in getting rid of the pain may not be very high.

Most vasectomy reversals are performed as an outpatient surgery and can be done under local, regional or general anesthesia. It typically takes approximately 3 to 4 hours using an operating microscope to perform the surgery. Recovery is variable and can take anywhere from 5 to 14 days.

We recommend avoiding heavy lifting and sexual intercourse during the first 4 weeks after this surgery. The cost of the surgery, as well as whether or not it is covered by insurance, is variable, and dependent upon where the surgery is performed and the patient's individual insurance policy. Cost can vary widely, depending upon the surgeon, the type of practice where it is performed, and what part of the country the patient lives in.

There are certainly some patients who are better candidates than others; time from the vasectomy is not necessarily a reason not to have a reversal. However, in the case of a couple where the woman has, for instance, had a tubal ligation, surgical sperm retrieval combined with in-vitro fertilization is probably a better choice than performing vasectomy reversal followed by tubal ligation reversal.

Side effects are typically minimal and usually would include swelling, pain or bruising; however, the vasectomy itself and the reversal should not have any effect upon potency or urinary function.

The success rate varies based on several factors. Time from the vasectomy certainly helps to predict how likely it would be to be able to put the two ends of the vas deferens back together; however, getting return of sperm into the ejaculate does not guarantee pregnancy, so pregnancy rates typically vary from 30 to 70 percent, whereas patency rate, that is the return of sperm, can be as high as 95 percent.

The only other option to a reversal that would allow use of a man's sperm with the woman's egg would be surgical sperm retrieval through either extraction or aspiration combined with in-vitro fertilization. The sperm removed from the testicle can be injected directly into the eggs that have been retrieved from the woman after she has been stimulated with hormone injections.

This is a very effective but expensive treatment with relatively good success rates. However, it is not possible to remove enough sperm from the man's testicle to inseminate the woman. There is some debate about the effects of antibodies on pregnancy rates after vasectomy reversal. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of men who have had vasectomies will have antibodies to their sperm.

However, these antibodies rarely prevent the sperm from fertilizing the egg. Therefore, we counsel patients that it is usually unnecessary to routinely test for antibodies, as they rarely will have a bad effect upon the success rate.

There was a report several years ago stating that men with vasectomies had a higher rate of prostate cancer. This report has since been challenged and, for the most part, disproven.