The Armor Men's Health Show

Regret Your Vasectomy? Get Your No-Regrets Vasectomy Reversal at NAU Urology Specialists

• Dr. Sandeep Mistry and Donna Lee

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Thanks for tuning in to the Armor Men’s Health Hour Podcast today, where we bring you the latest and greatest in medical and urology care and the best urology humor out there.

In this segment, Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee explain why some men choose to have vasectomy reversals and what that process looks like at NAU Urology Specialists. A number of factors can influence a couple to have a vasectomy reversed: change in financial situation, the heartbreaking circumstance of child loss, and/or remarriage are just a few reasons men and their partners may decide to become parents again. The success of vasectomy reversals often depends on the age of the original vasectomy. After 7-15 years there is a reduction in the likelihood of successful pregnancies resulting from a vasectomy reversal. At NAU Urology Specialists, our surgeons are incredibly experienced at these delicate procedures. Another factor to consider is the age of the partner hoping to conceive. In general, after age 34, a woman's chance of conceiving by way of her partner's vasectomy reversal declines. Luckily, the combination of sperm extraction and IVF can help older couples become parents again, too. If you or your partner are interested in learning more about these family planning options, or about fertility in general, please give us a call today!

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Dr. Mistry is a board-certified urologist and has been treating patients in the Austin and Greater Williamson County area since he started his private practice in 2007.

We enjoy hearing from you! Email us at armormenshealth@gmail.com and we’ll answer your question in an upcoming episode!

Phone: (512) 238-0762
Email: Armormenshealth@gmail.com
Website: Armormenshealth.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Armor Men's Health Hour with Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee.

Dr. Mistry:

Hello and welcome to the Armor Men's Health Hour. I'm Dr. Mistry, your host, here as always with my co-host Donna Lee.

Donna Lee:

Hello, everybody! Happy day.

Dr. Mistry:

You know, Donna is a professional comedienne, for those of you that have not heard the show before.

Donna Lee:

Your marketing company?

Dr. Mistry:

I'm a board certified urologist. This show is brought to you from Austin, Texas. We proudly air the show on KLBJ news radio here in Austin. But we're a podcast, and people listen to us worldwide on the podcast.

Donna Lee:

That's right. It may not mean a lot to people, but we have like 55,000 downloads.

Dr. Mistry:

We told somebody the other day they were like,"Oh, that doesn't sound like that much."

Donna Lee:

And then the face that you and I made, it was like the sad baby phase. We were a little heartbroken. We have about 500 podcasts and you can catch them on our website.

Dr. Mistry:

But we love those of you that listen to the show and call in and ask us questions. We love interacting with you as patients in the office. I especially love it when it's a patient of mine who has been a patient for years, that goes,"Oh, I just heard you on the radio." I was like,"Did you not see all the signs? It wasn't an accident."

Donna Lee:

We sort of self-promote around there. I like it when people like they've been a patient forever and then they're like,"Hey, have you heard that urologist on the radio show?"

Dr. Mistry:

That is also my favorite.

Donna Lee:

"He is similar to you."

Dr. Mistry:

But not as, but not as enjoyable as when other urologists say,"You know, another patient came in and told me what you said on the radio and now I got to do that." I was like,"Sorry, man, you got to practice the right medicine." This show is brought to you by NAU Urology Specialists. That's the urology practice that I started in 2007.

Donna Lee:

14 years ago.

Dr. Mistry:

14 years ago. We just celebrated our anniversary. We'll make a big deal next year, but probably not.

Donna Lee:

The big 15.

Dr. Mistry:

I keep forgetting. It makes me think about how old I am.

Donna Lee:

We remember, we already talked about that around the office. We're planning right now.

Dr. Mistry:

We've seen tens of thousands of patients over the years, have saved countless lives and improved countless others. And we look forward to making a difference in your life. If you have men's health issues related to low testosterone, kidney stones, low sex drive, erectile dysfunction; if you are concerned about prostate cancer or enlarged prostate and prostate health; if you want to know what the cutting edge of medicine offers, and especially if you're out there and you have a problem that has not been addressed and you want a second opinion, we're here for you.

Donna Lee:

Oh my gosh. We've had so many of those. People are not been to the doctor, didn't know they should, or too embarrassed...

Dr. Mistry:

I would say about almost when we first started, only about 20% of patients that we saw had ever seen a urologist before. But, but now the number of new patients that I see that are coming to us for a second opinion is probably in the 80% range. And it's because you're not hearing kind of advice that is in line with your treatment goals, and we want to make sure we go that extra mile and give you those treatment goals. That's an important aspect of how, how we're different with our patients. We love all of your questions, we love interacting with you, and one of the big things that we do in the office is vasectomies, and related to that is when people change their mind about vasectomies.

Donna Lee:

That worries me because I'll sometimes schedule a young guy and he's like,"Yeah, I'm 20. I want to get a vasectomy. How hard is it to reverse later in life"? And I'm like,"It's not a walk in the park."

Dr. Mistry:

Well, I thought we'd talk a little bit about vasectomy reversal and fertility options after vasectomy just so people know, you know, what was out there. Donna, how do people get ahold of us? How do people make an appointment with us?

Donna Lee:

You can call us at(512) 238-0762 during the week and you can reach out to us through our website, or you can email us at armormenshealth@gmail.com. Our website is armormenshealth.com. You do a whole lot of the vasectomy reversals and you train a lot of people on that, so I think you're probably the one to talk about it.

Dr. Mistry:

And the interesting thing is not everyone, you may think that urologists all have like a basic skill set, which they do, and you may think that a vasectomy reversal may be in that skill set. You would be wrong, because the vasectomy reversal is actually something that takes training, it takes practice. The suture material and the techniques can be extremely fine in terms of how meticulous you have to be.

Donna Lee:

How big are the little sutures?

Dr. Mistry:

The sutures are, are about, about a third, the size of your hair, the thickness of your hair. They're so small that you really can't even see the needle with your naked eye. You have to like look at it very closely and then of course, under a microscope, they're much bigger and magnified. Because the hole that you're trying to reconstruct is so small, if you use a large suture, it would obstruct it immediately. The numbers of how many men seek reversals after a vasectomy, it's unknown largely because we use insurance data to track case numbers, and both the vasectomy for many patients, some they'll pay cash, but most get insurance to cover it. And the reversal though, a lot of them are done in the military, so they're not tracked. A lot of more done for cash, so they're not tracked. So the true numbers are unknown, but I would guess that it's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about a one in 10 men who have a vasectomy later want to have children. Let's just say that.

Donna Lee:

That's a pretty big number, though.

Dr. Mistry:

And in our office, uh, under my supervision, a vasectomy may take, I don't know, eight minutes. It's done with a, in our office with an optional general sedative called Versed.

Donna Lee:

And the eighties music background.

Dr. Mistry:

And, yeah, it's eighties new wave. And then I make a small incision about a centimeter in size in the middle part of your scrotum and take your testicle, the vas deferens, and tie them off, burn them. I don't use any metal clips. That's a quick overview of the vasectomy. If you're looking for a vasectomy, we'd love to do it. Go to our website and make an appointment, yada, yada, yada. If you're looking for a vasectomy reversal and the reasons can vary. We've had patients in the last year that had a reversal because of a child death, which is always very sad. Remarriage is the most common reason, but sometimes people have a vasectomy for financial reasons early in a marriage, and then later decide to have more children. And so the options that we have, we just need your genetic material, everybody. Okay? And so, the old fashioned way's funner, and if we can reverse your vasectomy, then...

Donna Lee:

Did you say funner?

Dr. Mistry:

Funner?

Donna Lee:

Funner. More fun? Go ahead.

Dr. Mistry:

So, but there's other ways. So if you are remarried or your spouse is older, or if you're trying to...

Donna Lee:

We had an 82 year old man trying to get pregnant with his 31 year old wife.

Dr. Mistry:

Yes. More power to him. And if you are out there and you have like a gender preference, let's say, and regardless of the morality or ethics of you deciding what gender you want your next child to be, if you're deciding to do IVF to have a child, then you don't need to have a vasectomy reversal. We can just go get the sperm right out of your testicle.

Donna Lee:

Oh, that's right. We have that electro-ejaculate...

Dr. Mistry:

That is not what we do. It's called a sperm extraction.

Donna Lee:

Oh. We have the EEJ machine.

Dr. Mistry:

The electro ejaculator. We also have, but that's only for people who are unable to ejaculate, like spinal cord injury patients and diabetics...or for those that are looking for a good time.

Donna Lee:

Hey, party in the OR. Give us your butt. Doesn't it go into the butt?

Dr. Mistry:

I hope they bleep some of this stuff out. You're nuts.

Donna Lee:

You're nuts.

Dr. Mistry:

A vasectomy reversal is successful dependent on how long it's been since the vasectomy. So anything under seven years, we generally quote over 90% success rate between 7-15 years, that number goes down to, you know, maybe closer to 75% and then, and then lower. And then over 15 years, you know, closer to 50% to 35%. And the reason that the numbers are so big, it's not because of the S of how good the surgeon is, meaning it doesn't matter how old your vasectomy is. I'm going to get the two ends together very nicely. Okay? It's because the old, the longer you are since your vas-, your vasectomy, the blockage of sperm in the blockage of those ducts is going to cause damage upstream near your testicle and damage those tubules or make it so that good, live sperm aren't able to get through anymore. So it's not the technician. In this case, the longer you go from the vasectomy, you have a technical issue. And even after your vasectomy is reversed, it has a 15% chance of reclosing up year after year. So you don't want to have a vasectomy reversal because you're thinking about getting married and you may not have children for a few years. You don't do that. You want to say,"I'm ready to have a kid right now. Let's do the reversal right now," because if it, if you, and I've had this happen a number of times where patients had a reversal, then it closed off and they were like,"Crap, we should've saved some sperm." I was like,"Yeah. You should have saved some sperm. Your urologist should have told you to save some sperm. So that way, at least you'd have a plan B." The cost for a vasectomy reversal's around$7,000. We do it in the operating room with you asleep. The recovery is about a week and there are people who do it kind of infamously around town. They do it in the office. What I would say is how we talk about everything that we do in our practice. You can find somebody that just does that one thing, or you can find somebody that treats that condition. So you can go to somebody that does vasectomy reversals, or you can go to someone that treats male fertility, and believe it or not, those two aren't always the same. And you want good advice. If your spouse is over the age of 35, if you have IVF coverage, for example, in your insurance, or if really having a baby is a very, very important component of what you want to do, then consider working with one of our IVF partners and we will do a sperm extraction with in vitro fertilization. So if you're interested in being a dad again, that's what we call it, being a dad again, which I find weird because you're like already a dad. If you're tired of sleeping through the night...

Donna Lee:

Go through the pain again.com.

Dr. Mistry:

Go through the pain again.com. We don't need to worry about reserving that.

Donna Lee:

No.

Dr. Mistry:

How do people get ahold of us, Donna?

Donna Lee:

It's free, I'm sure. You can call us during the week for a consultation or to learn more about vasectomy reversals at(512) 238-0762. Our website is armormenshealth.com and you can listen to our podcasts wherever you listen to free podcasts. They're all over the place and you can listen to them all over the world. Thank you for your questions. Send them again to armormenshealth@gmail.com.

Speaker 1:

The Armor Men's Health Hour is brought to you by Urology Specialists. For questions, or to schedule an appointment, please call(512) 238-0762 5 1 2 2 3 8 0 7 6 2 or online at Armour men's health.com.