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Transcript

The #1 Vasectomy Myth Men Actually Believe · Vasectomy Clinics Of Chicago with Dr George Tsoutsias

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The most common reason men delay booking a vasectomy consultation has nothing to do with the procedure itself.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's this.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're convinced that somewhere along the line, it'll lower their testosterone, dull their sex drive, or take something away from their sex life they can't get back.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've heard this from patients for more than 20 years, and we understand it.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: When you hear the word sterilization and you don't know the anatomy behind the procedure, it's easy to let that word mean something it doesn't.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: But after 30,000 vasectomies, we can tell you with complete confidence that fear isn't supported by how a vasectomy works.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not partially, not with exceptions, not at all.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: In this video, we're going to show you exactly why, starting with what the procedure actually does inside your body.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So where does this belief come from?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's widespread enough that we address it in almost every consultation we do, which means it's coming from somewhere specific.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Part of it is the word itself, sterilization.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds final, kind of like you're neutering your dog.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: When a man hears it in the context of a procedure involving his reproductive system, his brain reaches for that worst case picture.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that picture often looks something like castration, a procedure that does lower testosterone because castration involves removing the testicles, which is where testosterone is produced.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: During vasectomy, we don't operate on your testicles.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: We only remove a part of the vas deference, which has nothing to do with testosterone.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: The two procedures have almost nothing in common anatomically, but they look close to each other in the fear landscape men carry into our office.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Once you see what a vasectomy actually does, that belief stops making sense.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: On each side of your body, there's a tube called the vas deferens.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Its job, and its only job, is to carry sperm from the testicles to the urethra so that sperm can be released during ejaculation.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: A vasectomy cuts and seals that tube.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We make a small opening, find the vasterens on each side, and interrupt it so sperm can no longer travel that pathway.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The whole procedure takes about 20 to 30 minutes in our office using local anesthesia.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's the complete scope of what we do.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're working on a sperm pathway and nothing else.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the part that clears everything up.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Testosterone has no connection to that pathway.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Testosterone is produced inside your testicles in cells called LADIX cells.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: When your body releases testosterone, it goes directly into your bloodstream, not through the vas deferens, not through your reproductive tract at all.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Testosterone goes through your circulatory system the same way every other hormone in your body travels.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: The two-weak cut doesn't carry testosterone.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It has never carried testosterone.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: It carries sperm and only sperm.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: This means the procedure we perform has no mechanism for affecting your testosterone levels.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: There is no step in a vasectomy that reaches your LATIC cells, no step that slows down their production, and no step that interferes with how your bloodstream picks up and distributes testosterone.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're not in that system.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're working on a totally different line entirely.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Think about what happens when your doctor checks your testosterone level.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: They draw a blood sample.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: They don't test anything in your reproductive tract.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's because testosterone travels in your blood, not in your sperm pathway.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: When we do vasectomy, we work on a completely separate circuit from the one that controls your hormones.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your libido is driven by testosterone, and testosterone is what regulates your sex drive.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Since none of that runs through the vasteferens, cutting the vasteference won't affect your libido or your sex drive.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: The same is true for erectile function.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Erections depend on signals from your pelvic nerves and on blood flow into erectile tissue.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Neither of those systems goes through the vasteference, and neither is anywhere near what we're doing in a vasectomy.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: The procedure is local and specific, a small opening, a very specific tube, and nothing else.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: After vasectomy, that system functions exactly as it did before.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: If this kind of explanation is useful to you, go ahead and subscribe.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: We put out a new video every week that covers the questions men actually have about vasectomies, the ones that are easy to find bad answers to online and hard to find good answers to somewhere else.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Men also want to know about ejaculation itself, even if they don't always bring it up during the consultation.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know if it'll look different, feel different, or if their partner will notice.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: The honest answer is that for the vast majority of men and their partners, there's no noticeable difference at all.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: The reason comes down to what ejaculate is actually made out of.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sperm accounts for a very, very small fraction of the total volume.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: The majority of what you produce comes from the seminal vesicles and the prostate, both of which are completely untouched by vasectomy.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: After the procedure, those structures keep working exactly as they did before.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the volume is the same.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: The sensation is the same.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's no longer included is sperm.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And since sperm was such a small part of the total to begin with, most men and their partners can't detect a change.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've performed more than 30,000 lisectomies across our practice.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: When we follow up with patients, we often ask them directly: did anything feel different?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Did your sex drive change?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Did ejaculation change?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is almost always no.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what we hear even more than that is something we didn't fully expect the first few times we asked our patients.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Men tell us their sex life actually got better after the procedure.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not because of vasectomy changed their physiology in any way, because it doesn't.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: The background anxiety of an unwanted pregnancy was now gone.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: That anxiety that had been sitting in the back of their mind and limiting how fully they could relax and enjoy sex was finally gone.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Their physiology stayed exactly the same.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was their mental burden that changed.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And removing that mental load turned out to really matter, even more so than most of them expected.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something we can promise will happen for every patient, but it's something we've heard often enough from our patients that we think it's worth saying out loud.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say it plainly: a vasectomy interrupts sperm transport.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it does, and that's all it does.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your testosterone will stay the same.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Your sex drive stays the same.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your ability to get and maintain an erection stays the same.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: The sensation and volume when you ejaculate stays the same.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your sense of self stays the same.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now the only thing that changes is the absence of sperm.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you're no longer able to get a woman pregnant, which is the outcome you came to us for.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: The fear was reasonable.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It made sense given what most men aren't told clearly about the anatomy.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But now that you know where testosterone comes from, how it travels, and what the procedure actually touches, you can see for yourself that a vasectomy doesn't reach any of it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's not us trying to reassure you, that's anatomy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're still in the research phase, here's what we'd suggest.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Bring this question to your consultation.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ask directly, what does a vasectomy do to testosterone?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: What systems does the procedure actually affect?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Any provider who does this procedure often should be able to walk you through the same explanation we just covered.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: If they can't or won't explain clearly why testosterone isn't affected, that tells you something important about how much time they spend with patients before the procedure.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: What we do at Visectomy Clinics of Chicago is spend real time at the consultation on exactly these questions.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not because we need to convince you of anything.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Most men who come in for a consultation already know what they want, but because understanding what the procedure does and doesn't do is what makes that fear go away.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not reassurance, it's just anatomy.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: The number one vasectomy myth about testosterone isn't going away anytime soon.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Men will keep reading forums, keep hearing the wrong version of this story online, and keep walking into consultations carrying that fear.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: But now you're not one of those men.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: You understand what a vasectomy actually does, and you can see for yourself that what you were worried about isn't on the table.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a different starting point for making decisions.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you found this video useful, giving us a like helps other men who are also in the research phase.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: If this video answered questions you've been wondering about, leave a comment below.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: We read everyone and we're curious what brought you here.