Undecended testes in older boys....experiences please..

[fluffyhamster]

Am starting a new thread after my original one here as it might attract people with experience.

DS1 (aged 10) was worried about his testicles not being visible in his scrotum. He definitely had them earlier in life, and was checked off several times by HVs up to the age of 4 years.

They seem to have ascended back up, which apparently can happen .

Anyway, he had an ultrasound today, and there is good and bad news...

Good - they are there

But
Bad - the Dr described them as 'quite high up' and said that he will probably need surgery to bring them down .

I'd be really interested in hearing from anyone with experience of this, as I am feeling quite upset that
a) we didn't notice this sooner
b) his fertility may be affected by having such late surgery
c) he will have an increased risk of testicular cancer

Has anyone had experience of this?

Just saw the consultant today, and he has recommended surgery

I'm so worried because DS is so old compared to the age this surgery is normally done.
The consultant said it's impossible to know whether there will be any long term effect - only time will tell whether he has reduced fertility as a result of this.

DS's testicles are also quite high up above the scrotum, so I got the impression it may be a more complex operation

Oh god.....

If anyone has any good experiences to share about older boys who have had this operation please post them....

I went to see GP about this issue about 6 months with DS1 (age 10). He said to wait until summer when it was warmer to check them again. The GP was quite relaxed about it

Went to another private GP last week who asked DS1 to lay down and lower is pants. His testicles were visibly descended.

IME at that age boys do not always have descended testicles all the time. They do go up and down depnding on a variety of factors such as how warm it is.

TBH I get the feeling that some consultants are quite itcy to book these type of ops nowadays whereas in the past they were not.

As long as your DS has testicles that do descend I would be looking for a second opinion rather than puttng DS through a needless OP.

Put it this way, the GP I saw on Friday was perfectly happy he could see the DS1 testicles and happy when I told him that DS1 does not always have his testicles descended. He said it was fine.

As your DS gets older I have no doubt that his testicles will be descended more permanently but do get a second opinion.

Poor you Fluffy.

I'm sorry I have no experience of this op, but please try not to worry about the future (easier said than done I know). Hopefully all will be fine with son's fertility, but none of us know what is in store in life anyway. He could remain single, or not want children, or have a partner who doesn't want/can't have children...who knows? You certainly must try not to spend next umpteen years worrying or pass your anxiety on to him.

If the worst comes to the worst and there are fertility problems, AMAZING advances have been made in recent years in the field of male infertility.

If there is an increased risk of testicular cancer, he will be screened I presume, which can only be a good thing. Whilst I'm no doctor, I believe that testicular cancer has really high cure rates when detected early.

It's a good thing you're getting everything sorted now rather than later. Best of luck with everything.

I hope someone comes along soon with some experience to reassure.

I posted a little hastily....

Not questoning the consultant you have seen and dont know how 'high up' the testicles are.

However, you might like to try the following as suggested by our GP.

Get DS to have a nice warm bath for 30 minutes. Then get him to kneel up in the bath, lean forward sightly, relax and press firmly in with both hand either side of his navel about 15 cm apart and run his fingers and palms slowly and firmly down toward his pelvis right down to his pubis bone. This action may well cause his testicles to drop down into his scrotum. He might need to do it a couple of times for it to work.

If that works, the GP said it really is just a matter of waiting and checking rather than immediate intervention.

Thanks Betty & Beta

Beta - it sounds like your son has 'retractile' testes which go up and down, and which, as you say, Drs are not too worried about.
DS's are not like that - they are never descended in his scrotum.

I too worry about the automatic 'straight to surgery' approach these days, but I'm not sure we have any alternatives really.

I did ask the consultant about hormone injections (not very successful apparently) and also the 'watch and wait' approach.
He said that if he had been able to feel DSs testicles and manually bring them down into his scrotum then he might have suggested waiting to see if they came down spontaneously, but as it is, they are quite firmly lodged above his scrotum in the 'pipe' leading down.

The issue is that they will not be able to grow/ develop properly there, and fertility may already have been compromised.

I just can't believe we didn't notice sooner. We can't remember exactly last when were sure DS had visible testicles . He was signed off as OK at his 4 years pre-school check, and I guess I stupidly have assumed all was oK since then.

Once your kids are out of nappies you don't really do a lot of close examinations down there unless there are issues, do you?
I had ignorantly thought that things would 'grow and drop' as he matured into puberty. it was only after comparing him with his younger brother that we realised he looked so very different.

Fluffy - a friend of ours has a son who had this operation done. He was 8 and recovered very quickly.

You are understandably very worried but I think you are being hard on yourself. I fully agree with what Pixie says, the chances of cancer are very very low. From a scientific point of view, the testicles are just not developed enough yet to be active enough to raise that risk or of fertility.

I am sure in the past nothing would have been done until a later age anyway.

I wis you and your son well and am sure all will be fine.

Thanks Beta

I know I am over-worrying, and the best thing to do is to get on with the op now...

The consultant told us he does 2 or 3 of these ops every week, and has done over a thousand in his career (!) so I guess we are in good hands.

I just keep panicking that they will find there is something wrong with them and have to remove them completely.

The only positive is that the ultrasound scan reported that they appeared 'normal' (i.e. not too small etc) so I guess that is something.

Hello! I'm new to mumsnet so I'm glad I've found a thread on this.
Fluffy - I know how you're feeling. We're about to have this op done on our DS at 17mths.
He was first checked at about 5mths then just after his 1st birthday. No scans tho. We've now got the op date through for next week.
Our consultant also said that it's very routine and would be better for him to have it now to avoid complications later in life so we've pretty much accepted it and have just been waiting for the date to come through.
Trying not to think of the 'what if's..' but when we got the booklet through about general anesthetic and the procedure you do get worried all over again.
Will let you know how it goes :)

Hi, this is my first MN post, but I wanted to reply to this thread as although my DS is still small, he had this op 4 months ago at 9 months. The op itself was absolutely fine, he was up and about the following day in no obvious discomfort at all, albeit he did take calpol and nurofen regularly for the first 3 or 4 days. With regard the cancer stats, our consultant told us that the stats suggesting there is an increased risk of cancer for boys with undescended testicles, this research was undertaken some 30 years ago, the stats for boys going through the op these days aren't yet available. Please don't feel guilty that you haven't noticed it before, they were clearly in the right place when he was 4 so may have retracted in the last 12 months or so, in which case, they have only been in the 'wrong' place for the same amount of time that a baby of 12 months who has had them undescended from birth, has had them in the wrong place. As your consultant said, it's considered a routine operation, as far as an operation can be routine on your child. Hope it goes well.