ElbowRoom's Implant Experience Journal

[ElbowRoom]

ElbowRoom, sorry to hear that -- I can relate. After surgery when getting into the car for the ride home, I miscalculated clearing the seat cushion bolster, dragged my scrotum across it with all my weight on it, and that moved the edge of the bandages/gauze right on top of the scrotum stiches. Hurt like hell until I got home and removed the bandages. Also caused massive bleeding that turned into a scrotum bull of blood, edema down my thighs, and a large ring of hematoma around the base of my shaft that prevented me from moving the shaft any direction except straight forward -- for several weeks. Even after the swelling had mostly gone down, it took longer for my body to re-absorb all the hematoma.

Hopefully the small amount of hematoma you have will be absorbed quickly and you'll be back on track soon ! Best wishes.

Holy shit that sounds awful. I'm glad it resolved well for you. It seems the human body (and implants!) are actually pretty tough and can recover quite well from trauma.

[ElbowRoom]

BTW, I got the bill from the hospital yesterday. For reference, the out-of-pocket cost with Dr. Hakky if I paid myself would have been $24-30k depending on a number of factors.

The bill said I owe $0.00 and the entire amount was billed to insurance, but I expect that to change and to be on the hook for $1500-2000 in order to hit my out of pocket maximum on my policy.

So...how much did the hospital bill the insurance company? How about $142k?

Now, the insurance company will no doubt come back and and only agree to pay "reasonable and customary" rates for all the line items, and the hospital will drop/eat the rest. But that is still likely to be over $60k, or about double what I would pay out of pocket.

The entire insurance/hospital symbiotic relationship is very broken and inefficient. It's the only sector of the American economy where none of the parties negotiating price are the ones actually receiving the service.

[dgraham]

The Northside system is expensive. In 2021, Anthem dropped them because "Anthem notified Northside that it wanted to terminate its contract, alleging that Northside's costs were an "extreme outlier" compared to other metro Atlanta hospitals." It finally got resolved after a couple of years but it was a mess to go through as an Anthem user.

The Northside Dr. Hakky uses was purchased from Gwinnett (County) Medical in 2019 and they have poured tons of money into improving that system.

[ElbowRoom]

Update: This morning I looked everything over after applying alternating heat and ice all day yesterday as Dr. Hakky suggested.

The severe bruising on my thighs, perineum, and butt has shifted from blue-black to dark red. I think that's a good sign that the tissues are starting to reabsorb some of that blood.

The left side of my scrotum has reduced swelling, is starting to hang more naturally, and I can now palpate my left testicle very well.

The scary part is the right side of the scrotum. It's basically a large firm mass that encompasses the pump and testicle. I can't easily palpate the testicle on that side, though I can tell roughly where it is by the sensitive sensation when I mash it. I can reach the pump, and I could pump it up, but getting to the deflate buttons is pretty sore and sensitive. I'm not pushing that.

My scrotum looks puffed and huge on the right, and sunken and flat on the left by comparison. I guess I just need to keep waiting and icing and see where it goes, but it seems like it could be several days before the right side gets anywhere close to normal. I'd like to start cycling again toward the end of next week, that was Hakky's estimate. Time will tell!

[Kodixx]

ElbowRoom, FWIW, what you are describing is very similar to what I experienced from bleeding, swelling, edema and hematoma. And yes your body will and is reabsorbing. You're doing the right thing just giving it time to recover and heal. Patience is key. When I became impatient, trust me, it didn't help things.

- Chuck

The scary part is the right side of the scrotum. It's basically a large firm mass that encompasses the pump and testicle. I can't easily palpate the testicle on that side, though I can tell roughly where it is by the sensitive sensation when I mash it. My scrotum looks puffed and huge on the right, and sunken and flat on the left by comparison. I guess I just need to keep waiting and icing and see where it goes, but it seems like it could be several days before the right side gets anywhere close to normal.

[ElbowRoom]

ElbowRoom, FWIW, what you are describing is very similar to what I experienced from bleeding, swelling, edema and hematoma. And yes your body will and is reabsorbing. You're doing the right thing just giving it time to recover and heal. Patience is key. When I became impatient, trust me, it didn't help things.

- Chuck

The scary part is the right side of the scrotum. It's basically a large firm mass that encompasses the pump and testicle. I can't easily palpate the testicle on that side, though I can tell roughly where it is by the sensitive sensation when I mash it. My scrotum looks puffed and huge on the right, and sunken and flat on the left by comparison. I guess I just need to keep waiting and icing and see where it goes, but it seems like it could be several days before the right side gets anywhere close to normal.

Thanks Chuck, that is good to know. It’s all novel to me and seems like this hard mass will never resolve itself. I just need to be patient, which is something I struggle with. How big was your hematoma? Mine is about half the size of my fist, and I don’t have tiny hands.